Assessment of leadership and professional behavior of educational managers in the complex and post-crisis era: perspectives of educators.

Objective: The study aimed to evaluate educational managers from the viewpoints of stakeholders (educators and faculty officials) during two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and two years of the post-COVID era. This was a longitudinal study conducted from 2018 to 2023 in two phases: the first phase consisted of compiling and psychometric assessment of the tools for evaluation of educational managers in the two domains of leadership and professional behavior, and the second phase included evaluation of leadership behavior and professional behavior of university educational managers during four years. Descriptive indices were used to summarize the data. Exploratory factor analysis was used to extract the priority components in the two domains of professional behavior and leadership behavior of educational managers.

Results: The validity of the tools was confirmed in the first step. Adherence to the principles of professionalism such as honesty and responsibility, and the use of management principles including constructive communication, monitoring, and evaluation during the crisis and post-crisis were highlighted by the educational managers. Implementing evaluation and providing feedback in complex and critical times in educational systems facilitates the achievement of the goals of the system and responding to the needs of the system.