In higher education, the ability to navigate and function well in a diverse digital ecosystem is now essential to student, academic, and professional flourishing and productivity. Universities had to respond to a pandemic that catapulted face-to-face offerings into online and hybrid environments. More recently, a preference for working from home…

Research is an integral part of the UCL-led National Professional Qualification (NPQ) programmes. This is the fourth report in a series of research publications from the UCL Centre for Educational Leadership-led longitudinal study "The Impact of the Early Career Framework and NPQ Programmes on the Work Engagement, Wellbeing and Retention of…

While leadership development is acknowledged as essential for institutional growth in the higher education sector, it remains poorly understood and under researched both empirically and theoretically. Although knowledge in this area is growing in western contexts, there is little published data from the Arabic speaking world. This article…

Global early childhood education workforce shortages have highlighted the importance of recruitment and retention. The development of effective leadership has not been a retention policy focus even though effective leadership has been identified as an important driver for improving working conditions and supporting educator retention. The aim of…

Women are underrepresented in senior leadership positions across global higher education and there are different reasons for this. This study examines barriers to women's leadership development in Ethiopian higher education, with particular attention to the role of national and institutional policies and practices. The study used a…

It could be suggested that persistent workforce problems in the early childhood (EC) field in Australia -- such as job satisfaction and turnover may be related to ineffective leadership practices, low pay and lack of professional acknowledgement. In this article we report on a small qualitative study completed in 2017, investigating 12 educators'…

In this article, we illustrate how ideas and practices of mindfulness can be integrated into management education, drawing from our work on postgraduate programs run with working managers. Our purpose is particularly to show how mindfulness can be introduced into the curriculum in a way that is acceptable for participants and clients, and brings…

Purpose: Early childhood education (ECE) centre directors have to meet various leadership demands at present, and this has become even more important in a time of extensive policy changes. There is little research on work-related stress from the perspective of ECE directors. The purpose of this study was therefore to enhance one's knowledge of (a)…

The aim of this article is to investigate how case method can promote leadership learning and coping with stress. An exploratory qualitative investigation was undertaken to study 57 early childhood education centre directors' course evaluations from the National Leadership Program through an online survey done between 2020 and 2021. With respect…

Much of the literature on leadership within education has centred on the heroic leader. Despite recent approaches moving away from trait and behavioural theories, the centrality of the individual leader persists. Recent practice perspectives have shifted the focus from leadership as an individual activity of a leader to leading as practices. This…

Brain drain poses a substantial challenge to Nigerian higher education, impacting faculty retention and educational standards. Guided by SET and PPFT theories, this basic qualitative study explored administrative strategies to mitigate brain drain. Ten people, including deans and faculty members, participated in virtual interviews for the study.…

Purpose: The increasingly demanding psychosocial working conditions in Swedish public sector workplaces call for implementation of workplace health promotion (WHP) interventions. There is a need to increase first-line public sector managers' capacities for health-promoting leadership. The purpose of this paper is to investigate first-line…

Purpose: This study aims to explore what causes stress to day care center directors and what their coping strategies are. In addition, the study examined the extent to which directors experience work-related stress and burnout, and the factors associated with their work-related stress, engagement and recovery from work.…

The higher education (HE) landscape continues to grow in complexity; thus, there is a need to improve the understanding of leadership in this context. This action research (AR) study was undertaken in a multi-disciplinary context of an Australian university to develop and evaluate an action learning (AL) project promoting leadership practice. An…

This paper considers the logic of practice of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in relation to critical action learning: in particular "habitus" which is co-created with field and the interplay amongst the two in the form of misrecognition and risk. We draw on interviews with participants who have experienced action learning as part…