Responsible School Leadership: Exploring Role Expansion in Crisis and Beyond

Crisis events external to schools can present challenges for teaching and learning, and the ways that school leaders respond to these challenges both immediately and over time can have implications that extend beyond the crisis itself. Drawing on responsible leadership theory (Maak, 2007; Maak & Pless, 2006; Pless, 2007; Pless & Maak, 2011), our qualitative interview study with 26 elementary school principals in 14 states explores how school leaders facilitate learning in a time of crisis. We find that leaders who built and sustained relationships both within their immediate community of stakeholders and beyond with the local district and networks of principal peers ultimately addressed the immediate needs of students as well as created the conditions to support these needs over time. These positive changes impacted all students, but specifically benefitted the schools’ most vulnerable learners, including students receiving special education and English language service. These findings draw attention to the importance of understanding the role that responsible leadership plays in school crisis leadership, specifically the necessity of weaving and brokering relationships that help leaders achieve not only their school-level goals but societal goals, including more equitable learning outcomes, while highlighting the implications of what we identify as role expansion for school leaders.