Shaping School Leadership in Today’s Health Crisis
Jocelyn D. Baluyut, PhD
The current COVID-19 outbreak has caused considerable disruptions, emphasizing the need for adaptable leadership to manage the many issues we are currently confronted with. It’s a fact that school leaders do encounter tough situations in their leadership roles, but the pandemic presented social, emotional, and economic devastation in a wider range that entailed "operational tempo," which, according to Aagaard and Ernest, 2020, demands actions to be performed at a rate and intensity that is proportional to the rate and intensity of emergent occurrences.
Leading wisely is the secret to keeping an organization moving in the face of uncertainty. It’s important to organize teams, make sound decisions, and demonstrate empathy in order to express confidence and build trust in one’s leadership. A leader’s words and actions matter in such challenging situations and so it’s important to help each member of your team adjust and cope with the current context or situation in order to broaden their understanding and draw meaning from their unusual experiences.
Turning a crisis into a catalyst of positivity lies with a great leader’s flexibility and crisis management and communication skills. Today’s technology offers a wide range of communication tools for information gathering and dissemination, therefore effective communication is the key to relay instructions and to share messages to make people feel safe, cope mentally and manage emotions for purpose, meaning and stability.
As we advance to the "next normal", the health crisis intensifies, thus, the scale of events is there ready to approach and challenge leaders from all walks of life. The economic and financial crisis will continue to linger, which affects our learners and stakeholders. Nevertheless, with a strong mindset and strategic leadership, uplifting moments can be realized to boost employees’ morale. Therefore, in order to unlock creativity and develop momentum for the future, leaders will need to instill resilience in people and tap reservoirs of hope, trust, and optimism. Building that momentum will require channeling good attitudes and developing a sense of greater community.
The author
is Principal
--oOo-
III at Lubao National High School