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Research conducted by Monash University's Faculty of Education has found that schools leaders who engaged with their community through communication and compassion-based responses, successfully led their schools through crisis and times of uncertainty.

Monash studied the experiences of eight school leaders across Victoria in 2020 during community lockdown and remote learning period. 

The report Leading in lockdown: Community, communication and compassion in response to the COVID-19 crisis presents data and observations collected from  individual, semi-structured interviews. 

Key findings included:

• school leaders identified the lockdowns heightened their connection and relationships with their wider school community
• members of the community turned to school leaders as calm and authoritative voices during times of confusion
• school leaders identified the challenges of extreme workload and emotional drain on themselves and colleagues
• key impacts for school leaders identified:
  • their attention was predominantly directed to the wellbeing of their communities
  • an increase in the community leadership aspect of their role and the requirement of effective, timely and honest communication
  • demonstrated prospective sensemaking capabilities
  • their ability to generate a positive and productive outcome from their disruptive experiences

Lead researcher and paper author Dr Fiona Longmuir said overall the strongest message from all participants was just how all-encompassing and important wellbeing became during the pandemic.

"Leaders reported that the caring and compassionate aspects of their role were the most necessary as they supported their communities,” Dr Longmuir said in a statement.

The research has provided greater understanding on how educational leaders and stakeholders made sense of and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings also highlight how schools and school leaders that have experienced disruption can use their experiences to influence future leadership scenarios in critical times.

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