Leadership as Digitally Mediated Work: A Framework for School Leadership in Digital Learning

As digital learning has expanded across K–12 education, school leaders increasingly navigate organizational, instructional, and governance conditions that differ from those of traditional schooling. This exploratory qualitative study examines how digital leaders conceptualize their professional responsibilities in digitally mediated environments. Drawing on focus groups with 127 leaders representing diverse roles, organizational levels, and digital learning models, the study identifies four domains of leadership work and four cross-cutting organizational conditions that shape leadership practice. Together, these findings are synthesized into the Digitally Mediated School Leadership Framework, which conceptualizes leadership as digitally mediated work in which authority, coordination, and professional judgment are reorganized through technological infrastructures. The framework advances leadership theory by clarifying how technological mediation reshapes school leadership across diverse educational contexts.