Leadership lessons from administrators, faculty, and students during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction Due to the largescale scope of the COVID-19 pandemic, strain on the higher education system in the United States has been extraordinary. Yet, with any crisis, there is the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop new knowledge and strategies to benefit educational programs moving forward. The purpose of this study is to describe the leadership lessons learned by academic pharmacy during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of administrators, faculty, and students. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed of qualitative data provided by three focus groups. Each focus group was composed of one of three distinct college of pharmacy constituencies: (1) members of the college’s executive team, (2) faculty members who currently or in the recent past served in college leadership positions, and (3) students in an elective pharmacy leadership course. Focus groups were semi-structured, and discussion concerned leadership lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. A modified form of inductive content analysis and abstraction was used to assess qualitative data collected during the focus groups. Results Five main themes emerged across all three focus groups, which include open and ongoing communication, staying connected, turning crisis into opportunity, being adaptable/flexible, and finding ways to stay productive. Themes unique to each focus group were also identified. Conclusions Core leadership lessons in emergent situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, including adaptability to the changing environment and communicating accurately and with appropriate frequency, illustrate the need for flexibility during times of crisis and highlight areas of focus for future planning.

Developing a guiding model of educational leadership in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: A grounded theory study

“…This grounded theory research focuses on the educational leadership for the new normal in higher education during the COVID-19 crisis. Five main aspects of educational leadership are identified as networking, enhancing educational practices, calmness & compassion, analytical & strategical thinking and transparency which are supported by educational leadership literature during the pandemic (Chisholm-Burns, Brandon & Spivey, 2021;Fernandez & Shaw, 2020;Gurr & Drysdale, 2020;Harris & Jones, 2020;Klein, 2012;Lawton-Misra & Pretorius, 2021;Maas et al, 2020;Marshall, Roache & Moody-Marshall, 2020;Pekkola et al, 2020;Samoilovich, 2020;Talu & Nazarov, 2020). Certain leadership practices such as networking, calmness and compassion are more connected to educational leadership for the new normal.…”

“…When studies about leadership during COVID-19 crisis, there are conducted a number of studies which focus on leadership during pandemic (Akbari & Pratomo, 2021;Chisholm-Burns, Brandon & Spivey, 2021;de Moura, 2020;Dumulescu & Mutiu, 2021;Fernandez & Shaw, 2020;Fleming & Millar, 2019;Francisco & Nuqui, 2020;Murashkin & Tyrväinen, 2020;Strack et al, 2021). During the lockdown period, strategic planning in higher education focused on mostly preparation for online instruction and assessment (Loriggio, 2020).…”

Leadership trends in institutions of Higher Education: A bibliometric review

“…A contextual factor that has significantly influenced leadership studies in education is the Covid-19 pandemic, which has posed unprecedented challenges in the educational field, even though experiences with virtual education were already being developed, a good part of Institutions with a tradition of face- Suárez-Amaya, Wendolin; Ganga-Contreras, Francisco; Alarcón-Henríquez, to-face education were not prepared to assume the changes that were produced abruptly, which forced them to define, in record time, new ways of working, the challenge of the technological gap and inequalities in access to technology (Bebbington, 2021;Watermeyer et al, 2021;Sedereviciute-Paciauskiene, Valantinaite & Kliukas, 2021;Pekkolaa et al, 2021;Baumber et al, 2021;Chisholm-Burns, Brandon & Spivey, 2021;Dumulescu & Mutiu, 2021;Aftab et al, 2022;Muchabaiwa & Gondo, 2022;Yeboah, 2022;Mittal et al, 2022;Roy & Brown, 2022;Chitpin & Karoui, 2022;Shoaib et al, 2022, Du Plessis et al, 2022. In summary, it is evident from a theoretical point of view that leadership in educational organizations requires being approached from a multifactorial perspective, highly permeated by the situational, the contingent, which includes not only the influence of leaders and their relationship with followers, but also, its deterministic nature in quantitative factors such as performance, and qualitative factors such as the organizational environment and well-being.…”