Educational Leadership Complexity: Theories, Methods, and Practices
A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 16 February 2026 | Viewed by 861
Special Issue Editors
Interests: strategic leadership; creative leadership; followership; ethical leadership
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: leadership; workplace culture; workplace bullying and harassment
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Educational leadership is often characterised by increasing complexity, both at systemic and local levels. Leaders increasingly recognise that they work in potentially unpredictable conditions (such as in relation to the changes in AI, pandemics, climate crises, and geopolitical instability). This Special Issue seeks papers that span both theoretical and practical leadership challenges, for example issues regarding role sustainability, leading people, equity, technology, policy, competing ideological positioning, etc. Papers that illuminate and problematise tensions in leadership are particularly welcome.
In seeking to mitigate the complexity and tensions with which education leaders contend, educational leadership researchers have leaned toward reductive or technocratic framings that underplay the lived tensions, dilemmas, and paradoxes of leadership practice (Dolan, 2020; Niesche, 2018). This Special Issue invites contributors to consider a different lens—leadership paradoxes, as well as polarities and dilemmas—with the aim of illuminating practice in a meaningful way that enhances advocacy in role sustainability. Rather than seeking reductive or technocratic resolution, we invite researchers to engage with issues in educational leadership nuance, contradiction competing values, ideologies, priorities, and truths.
We welcome theoretical and empirical contributions, particularly those that emphasise applied value such as implications for policy, practice, and leader preparation. Themes may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Leadership dilemmas in complex or changing environments, for example how educational leaders make sense of and act within complex systems and contexts.
- Strategic responses to competing demands, for example how complexity perspectives challenge and transcend deficit or overly rationalist views of leadership.
- Value-based leadership and ethical decision-making, for example how do leaders exercise agency, courage, and discernment for ethical and equitable decision making.
- Professional learning and leadership development for navigating complexity.
- Leading through ambiguity, uncertainty, or contradiction, for example what forms and practices of leadership enable role sustainability and adaptability in uncertain contexts.
- What methodological approaches are best suited to capture leadership complexity.
- How relevant is leadership preparation in times of unprecedented change.
References:
Dolan, C. (2020). Paradox and the school leader. Springer.Niesche, R. (2018). Critical perspectives in educational leadership: A new ‘theory turn’? Journal of Educational Administration and History, 50(3), 145–158.
Dr. Nicolaas Blom
Prof. Dr. Patricia Mannix McNamara
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- educational leadership
- leadership dilemmas
- strategic decision-making
- complexity in schools
- ethical leadership
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