Crisis leadership in a sixth form college during Covid-19

When Jo, an Associate Principal at Franklin College in North Lincolnshire, embarked on her Masters research on crisis leadership in education two years ago, she could not have guessed it would soon become so relevant to her day-to-day work. When Covid-19 hit, she used her research methods and knowledge of previous work in the area to jump into action and interview colleagues on their experiences to better understand how decisions made by college leadership impacted employees and the college’s successful operation. She zeroed in on factors like consideration of staff welfare which enabled leaders to ensure that the experience of this unique crisis was, perhaps surprisingly, not detrimental to teaching staff. Read on for an explanation of this research and her findings in Jo’s own words.

Why this research?

There is a vast array of literature on crisis leadership, and it highlights the importance of multivariate factors such as leader experience, abilities, sense-making skills, responsiveness, crisis communications, and strategic planning prowess in shaping the success or failure of an organisation in crisis. However, the uncertainty of the Covid-19 crisis, its threat to health, education, the economy, and political landscape, and the unexpected necessity for the strict imposition of global isolation, confinement and lockdown made it particularly ripe for new research as an entirely new kind of crisis. My aim was to establish the effects of managing teaching staff remotely during chaotic and destabilising times, and the effect on engagement, motivation and morale. The crisis could have built organisational resilience; conversely, the study might have revealed that the crisis and the leadership used had a detrimental impact on staff, challenging the prospect of returning to stability, normality and pre-crisis conditions.

Undertaking research in a sixth form college in crisis

I used interviews as a forum to explore staff’s views and perceptions of how the crisis was managed within a sixth college setting and its impact on engagement, motivation and morale. Questions asked sought to explore the views, experiences, and interpretations of middle leaders and teachers, and to elicit responses to the actions of the leadership team. I then explored and analysed this raw primary data. 

Findings

When I began this research, I did not expect to find what I did: that overall, the crisis leadership witnessed during Covid-19 had a positive influence on the engagement, intrinsic motivation and morale of teaching staff. The leadership style used was described as more shared and distributed in nature: staff believed that shared leadership and decision making were present, enhancing the college’s ability to deal with the crisis. Participants also believed that their own perseverance, enabled by positive leadership, built organisational resilience and feelings of autonomy, empowerment, job satisfaction and inclusion.

The move to working from home shifted participants’ perception of work and the meaning of work, as both work and leisure shifted into the home. Participants expressed that they thought of the college’s physical workplace with significant fondness once it was taken away by the lockdown; however, the migration to the virtual world of work also provided significant advantages. While it initially caused a modicum of stress and anxiety in a few participants, once remote working became the new normal, staff adapted, spoke of a renewed sense of belonging to college, and observed closer collaboration and improved team dynamics and more positive relationships with leaders.

Indeed, there was a notable reluctance from most participants to return to normality and pre-crisis conditions, and there was an air of optimism about the future, despite its uncertainty.

Online teaching, virtual teams and remote working have advantages above and beyond more flexibility and autonomy. Participants remarked that the Covid-19 crisis was “a chance to be braver, more creative, take more calculated risks, and provided a unique opportunity for renewal and replenishment” (Todd). Staff felt that the crisis has provided the beginning of a new era in teaching practice, a realignment of college priorities, a reawakening for a love of work, and a seismic shift in organisational culture.

Leaders were applauded for their ability to make sense of the crisis and its emerging state. Participants overwhelmingly believed that, in the words of Shannon, “leaders acted in the best interest of staff and students, and staff welfare was high on the agenda”. This staff centric approach sought to mitigate any stress, anxiety and fear which could have been caused by the crisis on a professional level, something which the literature suggests is very difficult to achieve.

Practitioner research

When I started my Masters, I would have never imagined I would have the unique opportunity to live and breathe a crisis of such epic proportions. The opportunity to do research as a ‘lived’ experience during the crisis and to put theory into practice as a senior manager is not often presented. Using Franklin College as a case study was an obvious choice. The research was done mid-crisis, so participants’ responses were open, honest, rich and often quite emotive. The solidarity of staff across the college during this time was quite phenomenal. 

The uncertainty the pandemic created, the constant challenge to seamlessly adapt to the virus-induced virtual world, and the desire to prevent lost learning made my research totally original and timely. My hope was that the findings would be valuable to the college leadership team as we reflected on the lessons learnt during the crisis, but I also wanted to add value to the wider sixth form community. As we enter phase two of lockdown there is scope to continue research into crisis leadership in education. I would actively encourage anyone considering doing a Masters on a part time basis; it has been a fantastic personal development journey.

Conclusion

By encouraging collaboration, teamwork, initiative and empowerment amongst staff during times of volatility, the Covid crisis can provide the education sector, and more specifically the sixth form college sector, with an opportunity to recover stronger, realign college priorities with a shared sense of belonging, and create a cultural shift. The extremes of the crisis are the crucible within which we can find a unique chance to challenge the status quo, if our leadership is up to taking it. At Franklin, we worked together via distributed leadership to make the first steps to build a stronger college community out of the crisis; time will only tell whether we can sustain this, but my research gives us some guide to how we might be able to.

Jo North is Associate Principal at Franklin Sixth Form College in Grimsby.