Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic forced alterations to several facets of organizational life in unprecedented ways. Among them were changes in approaches to leadership and management practices in countries and organizations. This qualitative study explores the perspectives of nine Jamaican teachers (drawn from nine schools) on whether, and if so, the degree to which, their principals shifted their approaches to leading and managing during the pandemic. The study found that there were observable changes in the approaches to leading and managing. These changes were manifested in four main ways, namely adaptation, inclusivity, role delegation, and power sharing. Some of the evidence uncovered showed teachers being given greater scope to respond to peculiar challenges they faced on the front lines. These features were found to be similar to changes in approaches occurring in the management of the pandemic at national levels. The study has implications for how organizations respond to and develop crisis management models.
TopIntroduction
A crisis is a time of great danger, difficulty, or doubt when problems must be solved or important decisions must be made (The Oxford Dictionary 2022). This difficulty means that the normal response and coping mechanisms are insufficient to handle the scale of demand placed on them. A crisis involves disruption to the normal pattern of life’s functions, and requires, for effective management, the application of extra-ordinary problem-solving skills and emergency responses.
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted normal life, precipitated uncertainty, and required extra-ordinary resources to cope. This reality affected all sectors of society including schools. UNESCO (2020), in a report on children and young peoples’ internet access at home during COVID-19 describes the reality thus:
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the largest mass disruption of education in history and worsened the global learning crisis. In April 2020, more than 190 countries instituted national school closures, putting up to 1.6 billion students at risk of falling behind at great cost to their education and futures. (p. 4)
This chapter seeks to examine how selected school leaders in Jamaica responded to the COVID-19 crisis through the adoption of power sharing practices as teachers in their schools perceive. The examination of these power sharing practices will focus mainly on in-school issues. The chapter will seek to answer the questions:
- 1.
What are teachers’ views of the issue of whether the COVID-19 pandemic has created the need for different approaches to power sharing in schools?
- 2.
What are teachers’ assessments of their principals’ adoption of a different approach to power sharing because of the COVID-19 pandemic and if so, what are the manifestations of that different approach?
- 3.
How do teachers assess their principals’ power sharing in the pandemic?
In addition to answering these questions, it also provides a description of power sharing practices in selected countries, and discusses some of the challenges and virtues of power sharing. This analysis includes an examination of how other institutions handled the crisis, while sharing power. The chapter also outlines how principals changed their leadership styles by delegating roles and became more inclusive in their leadership approaches. The findings of the study show that the changes in leadership approaches resulted in the empowerment of mid-level leaders by giving them greater scope to respond to peculiar challenges they faced on the front lines. The paper concludes by suggesting some policy, practice and research implications and uses the findings and literature to outline a model of leadership engagement describes as MPOWERED. This model constitutes a frame for developing middle leaders’ agency.
TopProblem Statement
There is broad consensus among education stakeholders, such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank (WB), on a global level, the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI), and the Ministry of Education and Youth (MOE&Y) in Jamaica, as well as several private sector interests, about the variety of issues affecting the educational sector, in light of the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
UNESCO (2021), in a report on the challenges attendant on the re-opening of schools in Latin America and the Caribbean, highlights the need for greater consultation with parents and teachers in deciding on the best ways to do so. Television Jamaica, reported on December 7, 2020, that the main teachers’ union, the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), was displeased with the fact that the Government of Jamaica had not consulted the Association on its plans for the reopening of schools. A similar call was made by the Teachers’ Union in Ontario, Canada. This sample of stories highlights the fact that the issue of participation in decision-making in the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis was a widely held expectation.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Principal: The term principal refers to the head teacher in a school.
MPOWERED Frame: This term was coined to describe a suggested framework of activities, for use by school principals, which demonstrates how they can prepare themselves to more efficiently develop their mid-tier leaders for crisis response effectiveness.
Middle Leaders: Middle leaders in schools refer to senior academic staff below the level of the principal and vice-principal, who are entrusted with additional work beyond their teaching. At the primary and secondary level of the education system, middle leaders (or managers) refer to heads of departments and grade supervisors, while at the tertiary level it refers to deans, heads of departments, unit heads.
Empowerment: Kumar and Kumar (2017) define empowerment as giving a certain degree of autonomy and responsibility to employees for taking decision regarding organizational goals. Thus, Empowerment is a process that fosters employee’s creativity, quality of work-life, spirit of teamwork and to motivate employees to crave for superior performance for organisational effectiveness ( Hieu, 2020 ).
Leadership: Thompson (2019) , argues that leadership involves actions which enable an organization to achieve the goals it sets itself, thus leadership is process of influencing subordinates, peers, and supervisors work towards the attainment of an organization’s goals (Yukl, n.d. AU58: The in-text citation "Yukl, n.d." is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ).
Power Sharing: Power sharing refers to the practice of a school principal (and others in positions of authority) in delegating responsibility and authority and allowing members of staff under their supervision to make decisions or participate in the making of decisions related to the functioning of the organization and its mission critical activities. Thompson and Wilmot (2022) , assert that power-sharing is a mode of leadership which involves a recognition that there are multiple leaders and therefore multiple roles in an organization and thus wise decision-making will often involve engagement of the collective wisdom and the distribution of the duties of leadership ( Thompson, 2018 ; Harris & Spillane, 2008 ; Harris, 2007 ; Spillane et al., 2004 ).
Crisis: Crisis is a time of great danger, difficulty, or doubt when problems must be solved or important decisions must be made (The Oxford Dictionary 2022 AU57: The in-text citation "The Oxford Dictionary 2022" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). This difficulty means that the normal response and coping mechanisms are insufficient to handle the scale of demand placed on them. An organizational crisis involves destabilization and disruption of the normal pattern of the organization functions, and an escalation of one or more issues, errors, or procedures are expected in this period ( Zamoum, K., & Gorpe, T. S.; 2018 ), thus requiring the application of extra-ordinary problem-solving skills and emergency responses.
Agency: Agency refers to a professional’s sense of intellectual independence and capacity to engage superiors, peers, and organizational processes in ways which reflect self-confidence, a willingness to interrogate, and an ability to take action to effect change or influence the taking of action effecting of change. Moore (2016) describes agency as having a feeling of control over one’s actions and their consequences, and involves consciousness, free will, and responsibility.