Leadership styles that would enable school leaders to support the wellbeing of teachers during COVID-19

Abstract

In times of crisis, people look up to their leaders and expect that they would minimise the impact of the crisis at hand. Leaders in such situations must grasp and address the crisis while maintaining a sense of normality. In this research, we drew on data from a literature search to answer the following question: What can be learnt from studies on teacher wellbeing during the COVID-19 crisis, that can help us to determine the leadership style needed to support teacher wellbeing? A literature search was conducted to create a database of articles that focused on teacher wellbeing during the COVID-19 crisis and school leadership. The following four keywords/phrases were used during the search: crisis management in schools; crisis management during COVID-19 in schools; leadership styles for crisis management; and leadership styles in support of teacher wellbeing during crisis situations. The review included both national and international studies. This paper highlights two leadership best practices for navigating teacher wellbeing challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, namely distributed leadership and compassionate leadership.