Date of Award

Spring 5-5-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Educational Studies

First Advisor

John H. Ciesluk, Ed.D.

Second Advisor

Salvatore Terrasi, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

John Marcus, Ph.D.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic altered the conditions of district leadership and required superintendents to make high-stakes decisions amid uncertainty, public scrutiny, and sustained operational disruption. Although scholarship on educational crisis leadership has expanded, fewer studies center superintendents’ own accounts of the knowledge, skills, and conditions that shaped their leadership during COVID-19, and its professional impact. This phenomenological study examined district-level crisis leadership during the first two years of the pandemic, with attention to crisis problem solving, role isolation, crisis communication, and superintendent sustainability. Three research questions guided the study: (1) What knowledge and skills did superintendents perceive necessary for leading during the COVID-19 Pandemic? (2) What were the factors and conditions that superintendents report fostered or inhibited effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic?  and (3) What understandings do superintendents report they gained from leading during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how did that experience influence their professional practice and career trajectories? The study utilized in-depth interviews and document analysis. Participants included eight Massachusetts superintendents who led suburban districts of fewer than 5,000 students during the first two years of COVID-19 and belonged to two established cohorts. Three assistant superintendents piloted the interview protocol and were included because their reflections provided aligned district-level perspectives. Participants shared district artifacts and analysis incorporated state and federal guidance documents to contextualize decision conditions. Iterative coding and thematic clustering identified shared meaning across accounts. Five findings emerged. Participants described crisis leadership as relational and team centered. They identified communication competency as a defining leadership skill and viewed emotional intelligence capacities as essential for sustained crisis management. They concurred that decision-making capacity was a critical factor shaping effective pandemic management and emphasized that external conditions could inhibit or enable timely action. Finally, they reported that leading through COVID-19 strengthened crisis leadership capacity while reshaping perceptions of the role’s intensity and long-term sustainability. These findings support crisis leadership as sustained adaptive work and carry implications for superintendent preparation, governance stability, coordinated guidance, and professional networks that reduce isolation and strengthen leader endurance.

Keywords:  Crisis leadership, school superintendents, COVID-19 pandemic, adaptive leadership, crisis communication, decision-making, superintendent sustainability

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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