Qualitative study examines how school leaders maintain functionality under institutional fragility, suggesting new leadership effectiveness frameworks.
Key Points
To explore how school leadership operates under conditions of institutional fragility and prevents organizational erosion.
Qualitative-dominant mixed-methods multiple-case study in five public primary schools in Cyprus (n=124).
Combined whole-network social network analysis with interviews, observations, and document analysis.
Leadership under fragility is enacted through trust stabilization, emotional containment, and relational labor redistribution.
These mechanisms sustain necessary organizational functioning and professional commitment among staff.
Distributed leadership acts as a compensatory strategy for middle leaders and informal actors to maintain organizational coherence.