Despite growing interest in examining the role of school leadership during times of crisis, there remains a lack of cross-crisis integrated and synthesised evidence to guide effective crisis management practices. The purpose of this research is to synthesise qualitative evidence on crisis leadership in order to provide a comprehensive conceptualisation of crisis school leadership based on findings from qualitative studies.
Following established systematic review procedures, including identification, extraction, analysis, and synthesis, and utilising recognised tools, such as PRISMA and SPIDER, this meta-synthesis examines 64 qualitative studies indexed in Scopus.
The findings reveal five key themes and various sub-themes: (1) Crisis response leadership, emphasising early detection, communication, preparedness, and immediate response; (2) Supporting mental health and well-being, highlighting the critical role of emotional leadership from immediate caregiving to systemic well-being initiatives; (3) Community engagement and partnership, including collaboration with local authorities, effective communication with parents and students, resource integration, and collaborative decision-making; (4) Instructional and digital leadership, focusing on flexible instructional planning, and digital learning; and (5) Adaptive leadership, emphasising an adaptive mindset, innovation, and reflective practice for continuous improvement.
By integrating insights from diverse crisis contexts through a cross-crisis synthesis, this meta-synthesis provides a comprehensive framework for crisis leadership, offering practical guidance for school leaders to enhance their preparedness and response capabilities. It also offers evidence-based insights for educational policymakers on concrete actions to better prepare principals and schools for crisis management. Finally, it provides research directions for addressing significant issues related to crisis management.
