Crisis leadership: Principals’ metaphors during COVID-19

Abstract

The roles of school principals changed during the Covid-19 pandemic, alongside all changes in the school system and society. Exploring the metaphors they used, the current qualitative research is an exploration of 42 Israeli Arab and Jewish middle-school principals’ interpretations of their leadership role in the time of crisis. Analysis of semistructured interviews yielded three themes: the organizational role, the professional role, and the emotional role. The metaphors expressed the principals’ perceptions of what was required from them during the pandemic. Metaphors can simplify complexities and break down that which is abstract and incomprehensible into understandable images, thus illuminating school principals’ reflection on their role during the pandemic crisis. This study expands the currently limited knowledge on how principals interpret their role during crisis times and provides implications and further research avenues.

Introduction

In the winter of 2020, schools worldwide transformed from classroom learning to distance learning, as Covid-19 spread around the globe, affecting 90% of the world's student population and forcing some 60 million teachers to switch to distance teaching (UNESCO, 2020). Thus, the pandemic seems to be the most disruptive event in the history of education, one whose waves and backlash necessitated rapid—at times even daily—changes of educational systems’ guidelines, which included suspension of all classroom teaching, switching to new learning and teaching modalities, and monitoring the health of students and their families (Huang et al., 2020; Reimers and Schleicher, 2020). Some consequences of this worldwide health crisis have included increased rates of student dropout, parents needing to take more responsibility for their children's education (Azorin, 2020; Striepe and Cunningham, 2022), and a greater emphasis by school principals on strengthening the school community as a whole, as well as the individuals comprising it (Thornton, 2021).

A crisis can be defined as an unexpected occurrence that may have adverse effects on stakeholders’ expectations and organizational performance (Coombs, 2007). A crisis in the educational system can threaten the safety, stability, and well-being of the school community, where students, teachers, and families are exposed to trauma, threat, and loss (Smith and Riley, 2012). In this regard, crisis management requires resilience and efficiency; school principals must systematically prepare for the crisis in order to minimize its potential damage. Failure to adequately prepare for a crisis may lead to management failure, and negative short- and long-term consequences (Bilgin and Oznacar, 2017). During a crisis, leadership is not oriented toward the future as its main focus, but deals with events, feelings, and consequences in the here and now, with the aim of minimizing personal and organizational harm within the school community (Smith and Riley, 2012).

Although previous research on educational systems in times of crisis has focused on crises such as terrorist attacks (Brickman et al., 2004), natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina (Bishop et al., 2015) and Harvey (Hemmer and Elliff, 2019), and school shootings (Connolly-Wilson and Reeves, 2013; Oredein, 2010), research on educational leadership during global health crises remains scarce, calling for broader empirical investigations and conceptual frameworks (Gurr, 2020; Harris, 2020). This is especially important to promote an understanding of the unique dynamic in leading schools over the sustained period of a global pandemic crisis. To date, the changes in the principals’ role have scarcely been examined, and we need to know more about their perceptions during such crises, the changes in their work, and how they perceive their role during the pandemic. Such an examination will promote knowledge of school leadership during crises as it has been claimed that “the leadership attributes and skills necessary to deliver these outcomes in a crisis are fundamentally different from those generally enacted by school leaders as part of their “normal” day-to-day activities in the school” (Smith and Riley, 2012: 69).

In the present study, we explored school principals’ leadership role during the Covid-19 crisis by examining the metaphors they used to describe their work and the changes imposed by the pandemic. Metaphors are a component of figurative language, reflecting cognitive processes through which humans encounter the world, perceive reality, and envision change (Witherspoon and Crawford, 2014). Here, they were used to explore how principals reflected on their role during the Covid-19 crisis, highlighting their use of language to define their leadership role and practices.

Theoretical framework

The study is grounded in the literature on leading in times of crisis and on research on metaphors. Both areas are reviewed here.

Leading in times of crisis

The contemporary school leader faces a dizzying array of tasks associated with managing a highly complex organization (Carter, 2012; Comber and Nixon, 2011). Educational leaders are expected to possess a wide range of skills, such as understanding data analyses, modeling instructional leadership, and developing effective staff communication (Clayton et al., 2010; Seashore-Louis et al., 2010). In particular, studies have highlighted principals’ role and significance in improving school outcomes, such as student achievements. Principals seem to affect their students primarily in an indirect manner, through the promotion of organizational learning and structures that allow the school teachers to routinely learn from each other and together (Qadach et al., 2020). In this way, the teachers improve their teaching abilities, which in turn can promote students’ achievements (Bruggencate et al., 2012; Hallinger, 2011; Louis and Robinson, 2012).

In general, in times of change, school principals’ work requires both reorganization and rearrangement. They must set a vision and clear goals to ensure high-quality education, and they must support the development of teachers and other staff members (Gawlik, 2015). In addition, they have to work at multiple levels, such as with the state and the school district. Thus, their role is generally characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty, and misunderstandings (Shaked and Schechter, 2017). A survey of the literature reveals the challenges facing school principals in times of crisis, especially the need for decision-making in unclear circumstances and reliable knowledge, as well as the need for the evaluation process and promoting organizational learning processes (e.g., Devitt and Borodzicz, 2008; Gainey, 2009). The distance-learning mode characterizing the Covid-19 pandemic has posed another challenge for principals, who have had to take the varying needs of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds into consideration (Van Lancker and Parolin, 2020). Thus, adaptations have had to be made with respect to learning materials, computers, and internet access for students from low-income families; moreover, planning for post-pandemic learning has been required, in terms of targeted education and support materials, to reduce the learning disparities that might result. Finally, school leaders have had to work continuously to identify signals of stress and distress in their schools’ learners, staff members, and community at large to guarantee their well-being (Harris, 2020).

Smith and Riley (2012) argued that the leadership characteristics required of principals in times of crisis compared to “normal” times are quite different. The latter situation calls for thinking about the school's future and supporting and empowering staff and students toward excellence in teaching and learning. The former is more focused on dealing with events, emotions, and consequences in the here and now to reduce damage to individuals in the school community and organizational harm to the school (Smith and Riley, 2012). In particular, during a crisis, organizations, including their internal and external stakeholders, can be markedly affected by their leader's frame of mind, personality traits, and actions (Wu et al., 2021). Thus, the school leader's role in a crisis changes in the following areas: managerial/organizational; emotional/well-being; and professional/decision-making.

Managerial/organizational

During a crisis, principals may enact more flexible management, relinquishing their usual control and evaluation, so that they can quickly execute mechanisms that respond to a complex and uncertain reality (Beauchamp et al., 2021). In particular, since the eruption of Covid-19, classroom learning has shifted to distance learning. At the beginning of the pandemic, school leaders led their schools from their laptops and communicated with the school staff online, all the while working from nearly abandoned school buildings, rendering them distanced and disconnected from those they lead (Harris, 2020). Despite the difficulties, many school leaders were effective and established a positive school culture—albeit a virtual one—in which the professional skills, abilities, and knowledge of the entire school staff could be managed and improved (Leithwood et al., 2020). In this regard, comparing the major actions taken by school leaders during crises in five Arab countries (Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Qatar), Arar et al. (2022) found that school leaders developed new skills to lead through digital means and to become more flexible in their leadership roles.

Further, it has been argued that during a crisis, administrators should demonstrate leadership (Whitla, 2003), sensitivity to the environment (Kouzes and Posner, 2007), and adaptive leadership and creativity (Stoll and Temperley, 2009). The latter authors claimed that “creative and adaptive leadership” is required in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex educational environment to avoid crises. According to them, creative leadership involves not just only problem-solving but also actively scanning the environment for, and dealing with challenges that could otherwise “derail improvement efforts or prevent schools from engaging in more radical change as they strive to prepare their students for the future” (Stoll and Temperley, 2009: 2).

To lead during a pandemic, principals have to balance the preservation of the school's existing capabilities with the innovation/development needed to cope with the new challenges posed by the crisis. Preservation refers to utilizing concurrent capacities and known operating patterns “to maintain stability and familiarity in times of stressful change” (Schechter et al., 2022). Innovation, improvement, and development refer to thinking beyond the normal courses of action, obtaining new information from external sources, and adopting novel approaches (Schechter et al., 2022). In the case of the Covid-19 pandemic, principals relied on teachers’ known pedagogical capabilities while simultaneously developing new high-level digital and online pedagogies for teachers to help parents support their children's distance learning.

Emotional/well-being

Educators, students, families, and local communities as a whole have suffered from the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, that is, from the pressure, uncertainty, and stress. Examples include loneliness stemming from social distancing or insecurity due to a lack of digital literacy, which can lead to greater anxiety and depression, particularly in teachers. Parents suffer from fear, stress, and insecurity as well, due to financial strain and economic instability (Anderson et al., 2020). In this scenario, school leaders must acknowledge emotions and demonstrate empathy, care, and concern.

Principals can show that they care by exhibiting empathy, providing support, and prioritizing the health and mental well-being of the children, staff, and the wider school community, both during and following the crisis (Brown, 2018; Fletcher and Nicholas, 2016; Mutch, 2018; O’Connor and Takahashi, 2014). O’Connor and Takahashi (2014) noted that in times of crisis, school leaders make an important transition from “caring for individuals” to “caring for the community.” This caring and support were emphasized with parents as well. The dimension of caring for members of an organization has been found to be characteristic of managers during a crisis (Urick et al., 2021). School leaders’ care of staff members has been shown through the identification of stress signals, and the provision of appropriate support and opportunities for the staff to discuss their feelings and concerns (Geer and Coleman, 2014; Mutch, 2014). The unique nature of crises results in managers stepping up, providing a “trustworthy, credible voice for their community” (Netolicky, 2020: 393).

Professional/decision-making

Studies have listed important components of crisis management, among them communication, support, participation in decision-making, and building a crisis management team (Goswick et al., 2018; Mutch, 2015; O’Connor and Takahashi, 2014; Striepe and Cunningham, 2021). The multiple demands presented in times of crisis are ongoing and often critical, calling upon leaders to step into roles to which they are neither accustomed nor for which they may not be trained, and act immediately and appropriately (Harris and Jones, 2020).

Leading during crises requires a high capacity for decision-making, especially when information is lacking (Schechter et al., 2022). In a crisis, principals need to forego their all-encompassing knowledge to act quickly, while carefully considering the consequences of their actions on the system's parts and as a whole (Gardiner and Enomoto, 2007; Netolicky, 2020). Under crises, leaders can make mistakes; hence the importance of learning from both good and bad decisions, to cope with difficult and unpredictable periods (Harris, 2020).

Furthermore, leaders’ rapid, clear, and accurate communication during a crisis helps build trust between the organization and stakeholders (Javed and Niazi, 2015). Cooperation between the principal, school counselors, and assistant principals was found to positively influence responses during and immediately after a crisis (LaRoe and Corrales, 2019). Researchers have reasoned that an important school leadership act during crises is the establishment of a crisis leadership team, which is tasked with restoring the school to its previous balance (e.g., Williams et al., 2017).

Okilwa and Barnett found that during crises “school leaders must be proactive and decisive, be effective communicators, demonstrate care and empathy for others, and embrace creative problem-solving strategies” (2021: 79). Finally, during crises, leaders need to make use of internal forces in the school through teamwork; they must determine what each member can contribute to the new situation, which may be distinct from the expertise of the organization's formal officers (Bishop et al., 2015; Brown, 2018; Fletcher and Nicholas, 2016; Geer and Coleman, 2014; Goswick et al., 2018; Mutch, 2018).

Metaphors

Metaphors reflect cognitive processes through which humans encounter the world, perceive reality, and envision change (Gunbayi, 2011; Witherspoon and Crawford, 2014). These mental constructs are a dominant component of figurative speech and reflect the way individuals experience and then shape their reasoning. Metaphors, then, can help explain our worldview, how we give sense to our reality, frame our problems, and select our paths of coping (Schön, 1993). In Aristotelian terms, a metaphor is a linguistic structure based on a linguistic transfer, producing an anomalistic meaning. The contemporary view is different, and metaphors are seen as images where two attributes or elements converge by moving between semantic fields. The outcome is a new linguistic combination, whose meaning can be surprising (Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008). The convergence of two semantic fields yields a clarifying image that helps individuals better understand new situations, and the interaction creates a new idea that was not contained in either field on its own (Statler et al., 2008).

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1999), metaphors, which parallel neural mapping in the brain, are a means of organizing human experience by creating images. Murray and Rosamund (2006) view a metaphor as a basic mechanism of cognition. Thus, the essence of the metaphoric process is the very thinking about an issue in terms that are unlike those of its original field. In education, metaphors can unify language, cognition, and emotions along with social and cultural dimensions. To explore educators’ thinking, researchers have used questionnaires, interviews, and personal narrative texts to locate figurative language (images and metaphors) in educators’ discourse. This figurative language helps reveal their genuine perceptions of their work and defines their educational beliefs (Court et al., 2009).

Other studies of educational leadership focused on exposing either the hidden or the explicit dimensions of participants’ interpretations of a certain situation, either by analyzing the metaphors found in the texts or by approaching the participants with a list of existing metaphors (Witherspoon and Crawford, 2014). School principals use broader symbolic systems to make sense of their everyday experience. The metaphors principals use can help the researcher understand their expectations of themselves and of their role in times of crisis. Being mental linguistic structures, metaphors can represent school principals’ new understanding of contradictory messages and their attempts to make sense of complex, ambiguous work environments during a pandemic (Schechter et al., 2022). The current study was designed to explore principals’ conceptualization of their role during Covid-19, using metaphors as a road map that includes rules, images, and principles which define leadership and in particular, leadership in times of crisis.

The use of metaphors to elucidate leaders’ roles in “normal” times is not new. Johnson (2017), who examined a national United Kingdom study of the life histories of 28 educators who led schools across a 47-year period, argued that in “normal” times, educators work as ambassadors—widening their horizons and serving as a bridge between the school, the neighborhood, and the world at large. Hernández-Amorós and Martínez Ruiz (2018) analyzed the metaphorical expressions used by 68 principals in Spain with respect to the way they viewed their leadership and how they felt about their role as leaders. Results showed that during “normal” times, participants used the metaphors of captain, orchestra conductor, ship captain, and first carriage of a train, rather than giving orders. Some of the metaphors emphasized coach and chief, as instructional leaders that guide teachers to contribute to the school. Overall, they found that the principals seek to guarantee the growth and well-being of community members, putting their needs first and most importantly, aiming to encourage the teachers’ personal and professional needs. Further, in their role as “captain,” principals attempt to influence, guide, and value school members and community to achieve administration objectives.

The context

The Israeli national school system serves more than 2 million students (more than 5000 K–12 schools), with approximately 73% in the Jewish sector and 27% in the Arab sector. According to the Gini coefficient, which measures a nation’s distribution inequality, Israel is among the countries with the largest gap between rich and poor, alongside the United States, the United Kingdom and Mexico (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2021). Mindful of the great diversity among school populations, recent educational policy in Israel has been directed toward achieving high levels of equality in educational outcomes across the board, thus aiming to narrow the achievement gap upward through growing pressure on performance (BenDavid-Hadar, 2018).

It is important to note that the Ministry's guidelines for crisis management (e.g., war, terror attacks) are clearly formulated in the director-general's circular sent to all principals. However, in the early stages of the global Covid-19 pandemic, no formal guidelines existed. As a result, educational staff experienced uncertainty on a daily basis, as policymakers sent confusing, often contradictory instructions to the principals on the front line. Furthermore, during this pandemic, principals had to prepare many different kinds of timetables, in accordance with the various government directives. These directives included dividing classes into small groups (capsules or learning pods), limiting the number of groups that teachers were exposed to, or limiting the number of students exposed in each group. Add to this that school administrators were being tasked with controlling the disease's spread. Ministry of Health officials asked that school principals report on corona outbreaks in real time, while locating and monitoring everyone who had come into contact with corona patients and isolating them. Because the Ministry of Education did not assign specialists for this task in middle or high schools, many administrators had to conduct, albeit reluctantly, epidemiological investigations on their own.

Research design

We choose a qualitative methodology to explore the metaphors that school principals used to describe their role in dealing with the complexities of early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic. This methodology allows researchers to collect rich textual descriptions, and in this study, to apply an attentive narrative inquiry into principals’ experiences in real time (Miles et al., 2014; Patton, 2002). This qualitative study aims to describe the “lived experience” of a phenomenon, focusing on the meanings that principals attach to their experiences through metaphors (Larsson and Holmström, 2007).

Participants

Participants in this qualitative study, conducted in Israel, were 42 middle-school principals—20 from the Arab sector and 22 from the Jewish sector (17 women and 25 men) from 23 urban schools, and 19 rural ones. They were from all school districts, and from different subcultures of both Arab society (e.g., Druze) and Jewish society (e.g., state-religious school). The principals’ mean age was 49.5 (SD = 6.34), and their mean years in teaching—23 (SD = 8.12). One principal had a BA, another one had a PhD, two were doctoral candidates, and all others held an MA. Sampling was done for maximum variation sampling, a method aimed at locating and describing the main themes yielded from sampling participants of broad variance (Marshall and Rossman, 2011). To this end, the diversity of study participants was maintained, in terms of gender, seniority in post, school types and sectors within the Israeli educational system (state schools in both the Jewish and Arab sectors, state-religious schools), and geographical districts (all school districts). The principals were located by using Ministry of Education lists of middle-school principals nationwide and snowballing, using the recommendations of principals who had been interviewed.

Data collection

The interviews, conducted on Zoom, were held from November 2020 to February 2021 with principals who had worked during the Covid-19 imposed lockdown and crisis. The research tool was a semistructured in-depth interview, allowing researchers to gain profound knowledge of the participants’ personal perspectives, and reveal emotions, beliefs, motives, perceptions, and interpretations (Marshall and Rossman, 2011). The semistructured interview allows flexibility, as the researchers can ask additional questions, seek clarification if the answer is obscure, or follow new, unexpected directions revealed (Merriam, 2009). Participants were asked about their perceptions of the principal's role during a crisis and used metaphors to illustrate this perception. Examples of questions: (1) How do you experience your role as principal in light of the Covid-19 crisis? (2) Which metaphor/image describes your experience as principal during the pandemic? All participants were fully informed of the aims of the study and were promised complete confidentiality as well as full retreat options. Pseudonyms were assigned to all interviewees. Transcripts were translated from Hebrew to English by a professional translator.

Data analysis

The two-stage analysis exposed, expanded, and verified principals’ metaphors through ongoing simultaneous data collection and analysis (Charmaz, 2006). Stage 1 was vertical analysis, in which the content of participants’ answers was analyzed; in Stage 2, comparative horizontal analysis, we searched for common themes as well as contrasting patterns, meant to clarify the differences and similarities arising from each participant's personal voice (Merriam, 2009). The patterns and themes that emerged came about through an iterative process of reading the transcribed data. The researchers identified key data that were consistent with the research purpose and stored as data files within thematic categories. The thematic content led to the narrative accounts that were extracted from the data. Thus, generating themes was an inductive process, grounded in the various perspectives articulated by the principals (Miles et al., 2014). Data analysis followed Marshall and Rossman's (2011) four stages, namely, organizing the data, generating tentative themes, testing the emergent themes, and searching for alternative explanations. It is important to note that concurrently, the researchers carefully considered how the coded data related to the chosen theoretical framework, that is, if the data could be better understood, and a more structured approach to the data analysis provided (Rossman and Rallis, 2012).

The analytic process described above was conducted by researchers, with each analyzing the data independently. A confounding property of category construction in qualitative research is that data within categories cannot always be precisely and discretely bound together; still, we grouped and regrouped utterances when their codes had common elements, until satisfactory categories emerged. We then consolidated the categories in various ways, until we realized how different components were interconnected and how they influenced each other as parts of a single conceptual construct.

Trustworthiness

Several measures, taken at different stages of the study, ensured trustworthiness. First, the diversity of the study participants was maintained, in terms of gender, seniority in post, school sector, and geographical school districts. Second, all authors conducted the analytical process described above. In the next stage, the authors met to reflect on the emerging themes and discuss them, as well as to search for data that would either confirm or refute these themes. Third, to evaluate the soundness of the data, we conducted a member check (Schwartz-Shea, 2006) for all participants. We sent transcripts of the principals’ interviews back to them with a request to evaluate their responses and, if needed, make necessary additions or refine them. This strategy enabled an examination of the descriptive data relative to the participants’ reactions, thus endorsing and solidifying participants’ conceptualizations regarding their leadership role during the pandemic crisis.

Ethical considerations

The research was approved by the Israeli Ministry of Education (Chief Scientist). We used pseudonyms, and all participants were fully informed of the aims of the study, and were assured that their responses would remain confidential. Participants signed informed consent documents.

Results

School principals were asked to present their own metaphors related to their role during the Covid-19 crisis. The content analysis revealed three themes—the organizational role, the professional role, and the emotional role. Although these themes are distinct, they are closely interrelated in the context of principals’ role during times of crisis.

Organizational role

Adjusting the role to a period of uncertainty

The uncertainty, vagueness, and ever-changing directives led the principals to new perceptions of their organizational role. Additionally, their role, and the space within which they played it, also transformed, and the metaphors describing the organizational aspects reflect this transformation:

Ruth (13-year experience) used a metaphor from military life:

It's like in the army. There are decisions, and you must carry them out. So, I don’t ask too many questions even when the decisions are contradictory. I feel like a soldier. I just go ahead and follow them.

Michelle (15-year experience) took another track, viewing the principal's role as implementing short-term goals, using a horse-and-cart metaphor:

I have a huge cart with loads of horses of different colors…. In my situation it's about taking a moment to stop and think, quickly gather myself and think how I’ll actually guide this huge, it's like this huge cart with teachers and workers and students and parents all tethered together.

Dory (12-year experience) describes her role as that of a bridge, and herself as being one element of managing the complexity caused by the crisis.

Now, slowly, very slowly I understood that I’m managing to do this, I’m managing to be a bridge. I started out by sending out letters to the staff and gave them all the scattered information. I had to sort out what works and what doesn’t, what is or isn’t right for us. The main thing is to be a bridge connecting very many points and focus them.

Leveraging routine roles into creative ones

Principals saw their role as important within the complexity and uncertainty, working through difficulties as they presented themselves. Gail (13-year experience), for example, spoke about the opportunity for improvement and creativity, using the midwife metaphor:

There's a repertoire of answers you provide for life situations you encounter. It's like being a midwife. I must create new priorities. It was clear to me that out of this uncertainty I must deliver some sort of certainty.

Others also noted that the crisis was an opportunity to grow. Using the Playdough metaphor, Rafael (2-year experience) emphasized the need for managerial flexibility, noting that

You've got to think outside the box. Your thinking should be elastic, you can’t be rigid, you must be flexible, understanding that things are super-dynamic, and… know how to make adjustments every step of the way. You can’t just follow the straight path. It's sort of like playdough, shrinking or you can play with it any which way you want, big, small, whatever.

Concerning the opportunity to grow, Covey (2004, 2005) identified another powerful leadership attribute in the effective management of crises: “opportunity solving.” Covey argued that every crisis that confronts an organization should be viewed as an opportunity for some form of improvement, be it enhanced staff morale, better communication systems or a better community image. Furthermore, in his metaphor, Rafael emphasized flexibility in ways of thinking, a trait that Smith and Riley (2012) claimed is required to manage a crisis or for crisis leadership; these include synthesizing, empathizing, and being respectful.

It was Shirly's first year as principal when the pandemic erupted. Using the magician metaphor, she emphasized that “during this time, a principal must be a magician. A veritable magician. She has to try and find news to make things run without ever seeing anyone. Not one single person. Only on Zoom.”

Principals saw their main role as that of guiding the school to adapt to the crisis. They felt they had to interpret the crisis so that it would be consistent with school life. Adel (10-year experience), too, used the magician metaphor:

When we talk about the principal's classic role of planning, organizing, supervising, managing…. The five roles that you’d repeatedly studied and practiced. Now we are more like the magician who has to pull solutions out of his/her sleeves—solutions for pedagogical problems and for social problems of the students who are at the end point of all of this.

Principals must espouse a holistic view of their role, seeing all parts of the school system, if they are to leverage their administrative role into a creative one. Mika (17-year experience) used a bird metaphor:

It's a bird. Because Covid literally makes me soar and see the full picture. [We] do our best to see the full picture. Because… we thought we knew everything, and Covid came and shock everything up and demanded new capabilities.

In conclusion, principals tried to adapt their organization activities to the changing environment and to the times of uncertainty. They were the bridge between the Ministry of Education to the main school stakeholders regarding everything related to instructions and providing information. Additionally, the crisis forced them to be creative and generate change.

Professional role

Adjusting the role to the surroundings in crisis

The Covid-19 crisis forced principals to select new forms of action. They were forced to navigate between the guidelines and demands of the healthcare system and national guidelines, seeking a path that would accommodate their work in the crisis environment. Heba (2-year experience) thought of an octopus when she described the constant need to adjust and maneuver:

I see myself as an octopus with all these tentacles that should reach all sorts of places spot on. Working with the team, the superintendent, the local authorities, and the parents and the students. Having to always be in all places Tentacles, that's it.

Afnan (13-year experience), too, referred to an octopus working to coordinate several fronts simultaneously and respond to all of them:

An octopus. You must be able to always reach everything and touch… different arenas, be it students, teachers, school staff, the community, the parents who are living in uncertainty. And there are other arenas—the school chain of which we’re part, the Ministry of Education, facilitators, the municipality…. In short, it's sort of like being a coordinator, an integrator. Bottom line—an octopus.

A ship was another metaphor for their role as a principal during the pandemic. Thus Roy (2-year experience) said:

Sometimes, in the chaos that was created, we needed the calm, some tranquility, knowing to take a deep breath and steer the ship. It's about knowing that a huge wave is coming, and you just rise with it, you don’t resist it, just go with the flow. I had to adjust and know how to let the team feel that they’re in a safe place. The bottom line is, we all get up in the morning, we listen to the news, we go to sleep with the news. We have to understand that the teachers, too, have parents and children, and when they know that they have some island of stability in this turbulence it gives them a sense of security, insofar as that's possible. And again, the goal is that the teachers will then pass this along to the students.

Adam (4-year experience) thinks of the captain of a ship that had hit an iceberg:

I think you’re a captain of a ship that hit an iceberg, and you’re doing everything to close the hole. The education system has never experienced as much difficulty as it did during Covid-19. It isn’t simple because it’d not always consistent with the classical definitions of running a school.

Ari (15-year experience) describes running a school during a crisis as a ship in a storm of instability, where it is the principal who must maintain the system's equilibrium and take care of all the teachers and students. Ari describes the principal's roles as that of a captain of a ship that is being tossed by the waves while he is trying to safeguard the ship and its passengers:

I’d compare it to a ship, to a type of captain of a ship being tossed in a storm, and sometimes makes it back to dry land, and then is out at sea again. There are days, even months, when things look more stable and then you’re on guard all over again. It's only on land that you can prepare. At sea you respond to the situation.

Kamal (3-year experience) used the image of a ship leader, who leads his team toward a new professional vision that is appropriate for the period. At the same time, he is also supportive of the team:

As a principal I often feel like a captain leading a ship on the high seas and also a lighthouse for the teachers. At work, teachers feel that I have their back professionally, and there is also the vision of innovation and creativity that will adapt itself to these times. It really is adapted teaching, method-adapted teaching and evaluation…. I said I feel like a lighthouse, a veritable lighthouse on the safe shores of a frenzied sea.

Jordana (7-year experience) used two metaphors—spine and lighthouse as she emphasized collaborative teamwork. The principal is the spine that holds the ship together, and the lighthouse that guides it through the stormy Sea of Uncertainty to a haven:

A spine. I’m there when there's a problem. They turn to me, there's a sense of partnership, togetherness in this. And it goes both ways, because I consult with them if there's a task, or if I’m looking for a way to do things. I include them, describe the issue and as for their input. Covertly, it's my preferred path, but in their experience we're in it together…. A lighthouse, the compass that points in the right direction. Yea, that's it.

Principals who described doing their job during the pandemic used the metaphor of ship or captain, having to lead the ship with all the complexities, dealing with the storms as they approach, react correctly to all challenges to inspire stability in the school (the ship), perform balancing acts under uncertain circumstances, and bring teachers, students, and parents safely to shore.

Expanding expected activities and availability

The metaphors that principals used to describe their role underscored the expansion of their area of responsibility and availability to the school. They also used metaphors to describe the new, crisis-driven situation. Abe (1 year) saw himself as a juggler, using circus imagery to illustrate how he's expected to provide answers for his audience:

Being a juggler, because it's dealing with loads of things that are related, and aren’t related, and with loads of things that just bump into each other…. And you've got to deal with everchanging guidelines and with parents, teachers, and students’ fears, teachers’ fears, parents’ fears. And then there are the Covid-19 regulations and rules, that were changed or replaced on the average of once every three weeks… and then we’re just running, doing short sprints and juggling. Juggling.

Anne, who had been a principal for five years when the pandemic broke out, referred to work without boundaries, day in and day out, as the workday stretched into 24 h. Judy, with two years’ experience, called work 24/7:

From an organizational point of view, you’re working 24 h. For 24 h you’re organizing whether in school, at night, when you’re on Zoom, … you’re always organizing. All remotely. This calls for very high organizational capabilities. You’re managing people who aren't near you, you’re managing black screens or smartphones or messaging. And this goes on 24/7.

Alice (5-year experience) perceived her role as that of head of ER, navigator, and fire fighter:

I’m in charge of a hospital ER, meaning triage, sorting and directing everything to the right department, whether in-class or distance learning or a combination of these two. Then there's the speed at which things fall on me, the regulations, the guidelines, the requests, the comments, and, yes, the difficulties. I must do things at top speed and take in everything. So first of all, I’m head of ER, and also, something of a fire fighter. I work to extinguish fires. I pour water. This is in time of crisis, and I do crisis management. In normal times, I don’t want to be a fire fighter, I want to be more… more like a call center. A call center I manage, education for prevention before the fire blazes.

Of Alice's three interpretations, those of ER and navigator are more closely related to directing the team and pointing the way, and she refers to the role of the principal as firefighter, describes another situation, where the principal is busy extinguishing fires during the Covid-19 crisis, and is less of a planner or leader. There is nothing creative or managerial, only responding to emergencies as they pop up.

Emotional role

The principals also referred to their emotional experiences of the crisis and their role with respect to the school staff and stakeholders. They had a sense of loneliness, a sense that affected their perception of their role and the way they are to behave as a school principal in times of distress and uncertainty. Dan (5-year experience) describes the sense of being alone on the battlefield, “You’re all by yourself. You get to school and you’re alone. Even the secretary isn’t there, or the janitor. Everyone's on unpaid leave. You’re the only one who comes to school.” Echoing the loneliness motif, Abeer (6-year experience) referred to herself as a lone wolf:

In March or April, we returned to school, and… one day, I was sitting in my room, and there I was. A lone wolf. All on my own. I felt like the loneliest person on earth, strangled from above and below. When Covid-19 began, I started thinking and the thoughts were chaotic. There was a week of trying to figure out where we are. My thoughts about how I’m supposed to function were very vague. I have no deputy. I have no one on my side in school. At some point in the beginning of the crisis I felt so alone. I felt alone with my thoughts, what should I do? How do I lead the school? What about the parents? What about the Ministry of Education? What about the local authorities? What about all the demands I’m supposed to deal with on my own? So how do I perceive this crisis. I actually think it's a challenge for me.

Ramzi (6-year experience), too, used the “lone wolf” image: “Sometimes I say to myself Lone Wolf. At some points, I find myself alone in the battle. But you gather your strength and just get back to work to do more.” To describe his experience of loneliness on the job, Lionel used the desert island metaphor: “We’re on a desert island, and I have to lead the ship, and that's where I took both sides—the pedagogic and the personal.”

Safi (1st year in school management) has an interesting way to describe loneliness, using a metaphor from the world of biology:

I’m a biologist. I come to school every day, and there's no oxygen and no glucose. None. These two materials are the responders, they react to the cellular breathing process in an animal's cells. They create energy. And without energy… there's no life. No movement! So that's how I describe the education system during the pandemic. When I get to school there are no students and no teachers. So, there's no energy in the school. There's absolutely no energy in the school.

Sponge was a metaphor used by principals who emphasized a sense of stress. As Dorit (28-year experience) said:

It's like a kind of sponge. We’re supposed to soak up all the difficulties that the parents aren’t managing to deal with. The school's part in educating children is growing constantly because, unfortunately, parents are losing their parental authority, and they increasingly transfer it to school, so the school is gaining power. Getting stronger and stronger. And you’ll hear parents say, ‘But what can I do, where have I gone wrong, what can I do? You do it.’ So, we’re kind of a sponge. We soak up the children's difficulties, because these difficulties are growing, and the parents aren’t managing to deal with the situation.

Jonathan (6-year experience) describes the experience of administering as one of detachment, using the mechanical image of “remote control”: “Detachment. It's like, using your remote to run the school. It's not simple. The essence of school is that you live it. Live the students. Live the staff. It's very very difficult. To me, that's the big challenge.”

Mika (17-year experience) described the experience of suffocation and distress she feels as a principal in times of crisis:

It's like being an acrobat. A tightrope walker. Sometimes I suffocate, and say, that's it. That's it! I can’t go on. Like last week. I was sure that we started a routine. And then—no routine. It's not easy, it's demanding and then there are times when the system also makes unnatural demands on the principal. Because there's the paperwork, the forms, the reports, dealing with all of it.

The sense of loneliness and turbulence was pervasive, affecting principals’ perception of their role and the way they coped with the crisis. Their metaphors reflected the development of a new meaning of their role in times of crisis—serving the system and carrying out orders. But they also saw it as creative, a change-generating position where it is their interpretation of the crisis that leads the school. Alone in the battle, they felt they were supporting the school staff and the school community, engaging them as partners to the success despite crisis and uncertainty.

Emotional support for teachers and the school community

The relationships between principals and the team were based on leading the team during the crisis, guiding its members, and directing them toward the road to success. Furthermore, human-resource management gained strength during the crisis, as did teacher empowerment, harnessing teachers’ inner strength for the good of school, and provide them with emotional support, especially during times of distress and uncertainty. This support included parents and students.

In Badir's (5-year experience) description, it was the image of light that was prominent. He emphasized the metaphor of the light at the end of the tunnel and support of the team to help deal with the situation. He highlighted the partnership with the team:

The principal is… the starting power, the one who must power the others, he has to navigate. He's the one who must navigate everyone into working together. I don’t have to be a lone wolf who takes power, or I’ll end up cracking, to the detriment of students and teachers. My first role as principal is to give hope, to be the light at the end of the tunnel for the staff and the students, leading them to the right place. I must transmit this optimism. Today, as principal, I’ve become a psychologist and a social worker, and at times I'm the secretary and sometimes the school janitor. So, I’m everyone's janitor.

In the time of crisis, leaders need to provide clarity and certainty, in order to engender hope (Smith and Riley, 2012). Badir used “navigate” here (similar to guiding during uncertainty) to refer to emotional support of teachers. In the time of crisis, the capacity to empathize with others and respect their perspectives, and the capacity to sustain optimism in the face of adversity are required (Smith and Riley, 2012).

Principals also addressed the emotional dimension in a time of crisis. Ali (11-year experience) described the emotional support he's supposed to give the entire staff, as well as the students and teachers, using a sun metaphor:

I feel like the sun, like a source of energy that energizes others. Its light must get everywhere, not only to people I work with, but to others who are supposed to grow and thrive and who need support, especially in this type of crisis. You radiate to the teachers, students, parents, everyone. Yes, I feel the heat. I didn’t choose the sun because I’m higher up and above everyone, but because I’m visible to everyone. Whoever wants my help can get it and lots of it, as much as they want. If they need it—it's there. And if they sink, they’ll rise again.

Azmi's (15-year experience) emphasis was on fatherhood:

The thing is, I don’t want to exaggerate, but at times I feel a sort of fatherhood, with everyone turning to me in times of distress…. Sometimes I’m perceived as being more than a school principal, more like a father who should be responding to others’ distress and hesitancies.

Ruba (2-year experience) described her relationships with interested parties in the school as a holder:

This is true both for students and parents. I displayed a drawing of two hands holding up a house. Because, in reality, the school moved, physically, to another location. Not only in theory, in practice. School moved into the home. At once the parents became part of the teaching workforce, not just a fifth wheel. And this calls for all-around change. Everything. Everyone. Even the janitor, the guard, we all work differently.

The principals’ metaphors emphasize the importance of supporting the school's stakeholders, so that everyone could get through the crisis together. They also used metaphors that symbolized leading the team toward stability and a pedagogy that was adapted to the situation. They used family-life metaphors and animal-kingdom metaphors, symbolizing empathy and support of the team in the time of crisis. At this junction, principals balanced between emotional support and concern for all stakeholders, leading the team during a complex and uncertain period, and carrying out Ministry of Education directives, all the while striving to maintain the school's own goals.

Discussion

The current study adds to the relatively scarce research examining school leaders’ role during a crisis (e.g., Harris, 2020), and management during a crisis in the context of education. It aims to contribute to the knowledge and professional practice of school leaders by examining their perceptions of their role during crises and the effect of these perceptions on their management practices. Principals have to prepare for global health crises in a methodical fashion, so as to minimize potential damage. During the response, recovery, and learning phases in the consequent periods of instability and uncertainty, principals may even promote the organization's further development (Bilgin and Oznacar, 2017). School leaders’ perception of their role in school processes affects their behavior, practice, and leadership (Da'as, 2021). Thus, examining leaders’ role during the Covid-19 pandemic can indicate important ways to manage during a crisis.

Content analysis of school principals’ metaphors during the pandemic revealed three major themes—the principal's organizational role, the principal's professional role, and the principal's emotional role. The metaphors expressed school principals’ interpretations of their leadership role in the time of crisis. Their perception was that with—and despite—the changing, and at times contradictory guidelines and regulations, it was their role to maintain stability and constantly adapt to the new conditions. They felt that their responsibility to provide stability and support during the crisis transcended the school boundaries, and extended to the community (Karasavidou and Alexopoulos, 2019). Principals expressed their role in leading and managing the crisis, not only by adhering to Ministry of Education instructions but also by reorganizing their role to suit the context, meeting the official demands as well as those of the community.

In their organizational role, principals adjusted to the period of uncertainty followed sometimes conflicting decisions and implemented short-term goals, using a horse-and-cart metaphor. Principals also used such metaphors as army and obeying orders, carefully bridging intra-school elements and between the Ministry of Education and school stakeholders regarding instructions and information during the pandemic. These metaphors underscored the principals’ role in managing its complexities in times of crisis.

During the crisis, principals leveraged routine roles into creative ones. They also referred to the managerial flexibility required for crisis management, using the Playdough image. The principals seemed to tone down the evaluation and control practiced during routine times and adapted managerial flexibility that helped respond quickly and efficiently to the ever-changing reality (Beauchamp et al., 2021). At the same time, others described this as an opportunity for improvement, innovation, and creativity, using midwife and magician metaphors. This ties in with previous findings in the crisis-management literature (Mutch, 2014; Schechter et al., 2022; Stoll and Temperley, 2009), which crises afford opportunities to be creative (Arar et al., 2022; Okilwa and Barnett, 2021) in managing schools in times of uncertainty and distress (Arar et al., 2022), using novel methods (e.g., managing the school from a laptop). In particular, principals are called upon to balance the school's existing capabilities with the immediate innovations and changes mandated by the crisis, thus shifting to thinking outside the box and adapting unusual methods to unusual times (Schechter et al., 2022).

As for the professional role, the Covid-19 crisis forced principals to choose new forms of action to carry out their work and deal with the crisis. These included expanding their normal circle of action and availability, yielding the metaphor juggler. This metaphor expressed the principals’ feelings that they had to respond to their entire audience—teachers, students, and parents, and be available 24/7; their role increased in terms of responsibility and availability to the school.

Principals used the metaphors of ship and captain of a ship, which describe the school during a crisis as facing a storm of instability, and their need to lead the school to stability and maintain the system's equilibrium. Their role as captain differs from their role in ‘normal’ times; here, they are leading in the face of uncertainty, with less information; they have to find stability in an unstable situation, and they are responsible for providing clarity and certainty, engendering hope, rallying effort, and ensuring open and credible communication with everyone affected by the crisis. Hernández-Amorós and Martínez Ruiz (2018) indicated that during “normal” times, participants used the metaphors of captain, orchestra conductor, ship captain, and first carriage of a train, rather than that of giving orders. In times of crisis, however, they need to bridge the different channels, gather information, and create effective communication channels with parents and staff. Moreover, stakeholders’ compliance with official health guidelines and school policies relies on highly effective communication with different channels and providing the staff and parents with information during the Covid-19 pandemic, to avoid misconceptions, rumors, or disinformation which can negatively affect this compliance (Schechter et al., 2022).

The octopus metaphor was ubiquitous, referring to the need to reach all people and work with many different entities. As professional managers, the pandemic made principals search for clear communication channels with their educational staff and with the parents, and create these channels (Goswick et al., 2018; Lambiase and English, 2021; LaRoe and Corrales, 2019). Two-way communication, important at all times, gains prominence in times of crisis, as it enables school leaders to dispel rumors, point out misinformation, and help build trust between the various stakeholders (Geer and Coleman, 2014). Ineffective communication during a crisis can disrupt relationships and the level of trust between the leader and the organization members and other concerned individuals (Howat et al., 2012). Effective communication, on the other hand, can help in coping with the rapid changes accompanying crisis development (Goswick et al., 2018).

The principals’ emotional role was emphasized in two ways: their personal emotions as principals during the pandemic and their emotional support for their school community. Compared to “normal” and routine times, here school principals described their feelings using metaphors such as lone wolf to describe their loneliness and their coping with many thoughts and difficulties alone in this complex context, or sponge to describe the stress and distress. Empowering teachers, principals used their inner strength for the benefit of the school, providing emotional support for the teachers, especially during times of distress and uncertainty. Principals were the sun and light for the team and a source of energy. The term fatherhood was used to emphasize the principals’ concern and support of the school community. During crises, caring and empowerment are strengthened relative to “normal” times. Leaders’ responsiveness to the social, emotional, and psychological needs of the students, and staff is essential and is expressed in their concern, support, and providing a sense of security (Goswick et al., 2018; Mutch, 2015).

Finally, in the face of the public discourse on the difficulties, helplessness, chaos, and confusion in the educational system, and studies that have presented desperate voices collapsing under the burden and operating merely to survive, this study tells a different story about leadership in times of crisis. The principals in this study present an onslaught of forward-looking and expanding processes, they talk about empowerment and opportunities, their relation to the leadership practices that they employ, and their ability, at precisely such a time, to leverage the opportunities created in favor of process renewal, development, and promotion.

Implications, limitations, and further research

In the current study, we used metaphors to explore school principals’ role during the crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, by examining the language they used to define what the leadership role is and how its practices unfolded during the early stage of Covid-19. Metaphors provide ways of seeing and understanding, especially in complex situations (Witherspoon and Crawford, 2014). More than rhetorical tropes, metaphors provide insights into the thought processes of principals about change as well as their reflections on practice and school during times of crisis (Derrington, 2013). Exploring principals’ metaphors can also serve as a scaffold to understand leadership development. Leadership is a continuous developmental process characterized by progression and regression in professional growth over time, rather than separate unconnected events. Thus, leadership development during crisis periods can be explored through principals’ metaphors as a possible reflection of their professional growth.

To make sense of confusing and conflicting demands during crises, principals can turn to symbolic processes, which allow them to reestablish their understanding, move away from the confusion engendered by the events, and ultimately maintain stability (Cornelissen, 2012). Thus, metaphors have a generative quality in facilitating the process of sense-making (Witherspoon and Crawford, 2014). Metaphorical analysis in times of crisis, then, may better facilitate and reflect principals’ understanding of their role and of their ability to respond and function effectively within a specific educational crisis.

Understanding the changes in principals’ roles during a crisis will give them ways to deal with future uncertainties introduced by crises in the school environment, as well as ways to lead the school based on changes. School leaders are hired without sufficient preservice or in-service preparation for leading in uncertain and turbulent times (Grissom and Condon, 2021). Thus, we recommend that crisis leadership be implemented as a core component of national standards for educational leadership, to be incorporated into leaders’ preparation and professional development.

Several limitations of this study deserve consideration. First, these metaphors were collected in the specific Israeli educational context. Inasmuch as metaphors may be culture-dependent, further research should ascertain the generalizability of these principals’ metaphors from other sectors and across cultures, and focus on the gender differences that may emerge. For example, as metaphors are subject to cultural contexts, which are also highly relevant for their interpretation, it is important to explore the metaphors of Arab compared to Jewish school leaders in the Israeli context. Moreover, the interviews with the principals were held at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. It is possible that had interviews been held at a later date (e.g., the midst of the crisis), the principals would have chosen different metaphors to represent their leadership role. Furthermore, metaphors in this study were limited to principals only. This does not explain the more expansive and contemporary usage of leadership as a group-based and network-focused framework (e.g., Crow 2012), calling for a more multifaceted research method. Thus, co-developmental metaphoric processes also require exploring metaphors used by superintendents, policymakers, and school middle leaders. Finally, in this study, we could not differentiate between each principal's metaphor and the school context from which it emanated. Therefore, it would be advisable to explore the interconnections between principals’ metaphors in times of crisis and factors such as seniority, school size, and districts.

Conclusion

We examined school principals’ perceptions of their role during the Covid-19 pandemic. Notable changes in their work were observed in three dimensions: their emotional, organizational, and professional roles. These changes were affected by the unpredictable environment. The findings of this study may help school principals, professionals, and researchers understand and improve those processes that will encourage principals to effect a significant change and reveal ways of overcoming the barriers to achieving their goals. A crisis in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic is extremely unusual, but complex crises will continue to occur. Thus, this research can be a source of theoretical and operative knowledge for management in times of crisis and provide a platform for formulating managerial tools for the school's educational leadership.