Navigating Educational Leadership Through Systems Approaches

Dear Colleagues,

In today’s rapidly shifting educational landscape, leadership must be understood and practiced within the context of interconnected, evolving systems. Educational settings operate across multiple levels—micro (individuals and classrooms), meso (schools and communities), and macro (global and national policies and sociocultural structures)—requiring leaders to think systemically and act adaptively.

This Special Issue invites contributions that explore educational leadership through diverse systems-oriented theoretical perspectives from sociological, psychological, and philosophical views. These include the functionalist paradigm, which emphasizes structure and organizational efficiency; interpretive and symbolic paradigms focusing on phenomena, culture, meaning-making, relationships, and organizational learning; and critical paradigms that interrogate power, inequality, and systemic transformation.

Perspectives from complexity theory (Edgar Morin), ecological systems theory (Urie Bronfenbrenner), and the concept of the learning organization (Peter Senge) may also inform this Special Issue. These frameworks recognize education as a dynamic, adaptive ecosystem shaped by feedback loops, emergence, and interdependence, calling for leadership that fosters collaboration, resilience, and ethical responsiveness.

By integrating these varied lenses, this Special Issue seeks to illuminate how educational leadership (reflected in practice-based or theoretical-based techniques) can move beyond linear, top-down models toward more holistic, participatory, and context-sensitive practices. Submissions may be theoretical, empirical, pedagogical, and practical, and should aim to expand our collective understanding of what it means to lead wisely, justly, and systemically in complex educational environments.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Global and local illustrations and models of educational leadership across a variety of educational systems;
• Parental and family leadership within educational systems;
• Conflict management in complex educational environments;
• Integration of initiatives, inspiration, and creativity in a variety of educational systems;
• Professional development of educational leaders in dynamic systems;
• The impact of organizational culture on leadership styles;
• Leadership in multicultural educational systems;
• The classroom, school, and community as a learning system;
• The role of technology in educational systems;
• School–community partnerships and collaborative leadership;
• Educational leadership in a global context;
• Navigating uncertainty in leadership decision-making;
• Understanding culture and relationships in schools;
• Ecological approaches to educational leadership;
• Tools for mapping and managing educational systems;
• Case studies of systemic change in education.

Dr. Liat Biberman-Shalev
Dr. Nurit Chamo
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 single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Systems 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 2400 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.

• creativity
• educational culture
• educational leadership
• interdependence and collaboration
• multicultural educational systems
• systemic leadership
• systems thinking