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A crisis is defined as a difficult or dangerous situation that requires immediate and decisive action. Crises are not the normal recurring challenges that schools experience on a day-to-day basis. Rather, crises are usually ‘confronting, intrusive and painful experiences’ (Smith & Riley 2012, p. 53), at least for some members of the school community. Crises of one form or another will inevitably occur in all schools, no matter how well the school is led.

There is no neat blueprint for leadership in such times, no pre-determined roadmap, no simple leadership checklist of things to tick off (Harris 2020).

The critical attributes of school leadership in times of crisis include:

• The ability to cope and thrive on ambiguity.
• Decisive decision making and an ability to respond flexibly and quickly and to change direction rapidly if required.
• A strong capacity to think creatively and laterally and question events in new and insightful ways.
• The tenacity and optimism to persevere when all seems to be lost.
• An ability to work with and through people to achieve critical outcomes, synthesising information, empathising with others and remaining respectful.
• Strong communication and media skills (Smith & Riley 2012).

Lessons from other sectors suggest that breaking down the broader challenge into phases may help leaders move forward without becoming overwhelmed by the scale of the problem.

In this way, the 3Ts is a framework that may be useful for schools: Triage, Transition, Transform (Lenhoff et al. 2019). The 3Ts can be used to reflect on a crisis situation, both during and after the event. This framework is not linear, for example, while moving through a later phase (transform), leaders may also be helping others in an earlier phase of the crisis (transition). The value of this model is to provide a lens for understanding the types of challenges leaders may face at each phase of a crisis.

1. Triage

Triage refers to an initial sorting process on the basis of urgency. The task in the immediate onset of a crisis is to separate the now from the later. At this stage, adrenaline is high, there are plenty of practical things to take care of, and the leadership approach most likely to be selected from the school leader’s toolkit is authoritative leadership. Taking decisive action, the focus is on safety and wellbeing for everyone who is immediately affected. For school leaders this could mean rapidly sharing up-to-date government advice to school communities and proactively implementing changes in their schools.

Accounts from schools directly involved in the Canterbury earthquake in New Zealand, show school leaders taking control while remaining focused on creating a calm atmosphere.

Leaders in schools and early childhood services became role models for others. If the leaders stayed calm, then children, staff and parents were more likely to remain safe and calm (Education Review Office (ERO) 2013, p. 1).

While ensuring physical safety is the absolute first priority, psychological safety is also important. People need to feel safe to ask questions, raise concerns, and propose ideas. Transparency and open communication help build a better understanding of the full picture.

Transparency is ‘job one’ for leaders in a crisis. Be clear what you know, what you don’t know, and what you are doing to learn more (Edmonson 2020).

Transitioning from the triage stage, and carrying learnings forward, requires strong leadership. A key consideration for education leaders at this point is how to ensure learning continuity.

2. Transition

Once lockdown or evacuation is over, and people’s basic physical and security needs have been attended to, the leader’s focus is to increase stability, and reduce uncertainty for teachers, other school staff, students and their families.

The phase of transition is about adopting new ways of working and being, be it for a short time or a more extended period. After immediate responses to dangers or threats have been actioned, communities are often adjusting to new approaches. This may involve a dispersed school community, or a move to relocatable buildings, as well as replacing lost materials. For example, in the context of the current pandemic, this phase has involved a combination of remote learning and a transition back to socially distanced classrooms.

A further example can be drawn from the school closures in Hong Kong during the protests in 2019. David Lovelin from Hong Kong International High School provided the following leadership advice for managing such a crisis (Jacobs and Zmuda 2020):

• Establish a crisis management team.
• Use talent within your school community.
• Identify key common technology platforms for communication.

This advice, born out of this Principal’s experience, reinforces the evidence-base on effective leadership through change, which emphasises the importance of teams and communication.

Mobilising teams and expertise

The complexity of the challenges leaders face demands solutions that reach beyond one individual. Rather than looking to individuals to solve problems, people increasingly recognise that effective solutions come from networks and other collaborations (Jensen, Downing & Clark 2017, p. 20).

Leading through complexity requires working together to draw on the collective wisdom of the group to find solutions to the challenges presented. A collective approach to leadership is essential for the sustainability and wellbeing of leaders, teachers, schools and the broader education system. Distributed leadership is an approach that recognises multiple people influence improvement in a school, including middle leaders (Harris & Spillane 2008). A growing body of evidence on the power of shared leadership has found that it:

1. Creates a more democratic organisation.
2. Provides more significant opportunities for collective learning.
3. Provides opportunities for teacher development.
4. Increases the school’s capacity to respond intelligently to the many and complex challenges it faces (Leithwood 2012).

Leadership in a crisis should be collaborative but should also look to be sensibly hierarchical. There are times when school leaders need to wait and take advice from government, system-level leaders and first responders. Within the school, a well-formed crisis management team brings a cross-section of perspectives to a problem, and reduces the risk of missing certain voices.

Some in the school community have specific expertise and leadership responsibilities because of their role. Staff with professional qualifications beyond education such as the school counsellor, psychologist, nurse or chaplain, and information and resource specialists in the school’s library have additional skills to contribute in such situations. Information technology staff become heroes when remote schooling scenarios come into play, and cleaners and facilities staff bear the brunt of restoring sites post-disaster. Supporting the supporters is a key element of a school’s emergency management and recovery plan (Whitla 2003). Tapping into expertise and influencers in the parent body, local personalities and networks can also support the school’s leadership team.

Clear and open communication

Communication is vital. In the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquake, New Zealand leaders highlighted their need for communications systems that operate when people have no access to an office, school computer or power (ERO 2013). In an information age, the issue leaders face is often not a lack of information, but an overwhelming amount. The apparent wealth of communication channels can actually hinder free flow of vital information. In the same way we look to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as our national emergency services broadcaster, schools that establish a common, official communication channel, and ensure up front that everyone in the school community can access this readily, are better equipped when the need arises.

Clear, simple and frequent communication is imperative to sharing up-to-date information and maintaining open communication channels. In fact, school leaders, who are themselves a key communication channel may benefit from media training (Smith & Riley 2012). Both verbal and written communication are important. In a school context this includes newsletters, assemblies and information sessions for lengthier communications, and the use of instant messaging systems, quick pulse surveys, daily staff meetings or bulletins, and wellbeing check ins.

3. Transform

Rebuilding school communities after major disruption and trauma requires a rethinking of social capital, resilience, of space, individuals’ roles and their contributions (Nye 2016, p. 88).

Leading the recovery of a school community after a crisis involves a delicate balancing act. Key findings from the aftermath of crises such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Canterbury earthquake suggests that for schools, recovery may be less about minimising the loss of student learning time and more about the role schools play in emotional and social recovery, which can minimise longer term health concerns (Hattie 2020). During this phase the needs of those impacted by the crisis must be sensitively balanced with the community’s (staff, students and parents) desire to return as quickly as possible to business as usual routines.

Through this phase of transformation, schools may act as:

• community drop-in and re-bonding centres.
• pastoral care and agency hubs for staff, students, and families.
• frontline screening to identify community members experiencing severe effects.
• facilitators of appropriate recovery services (Mutch 2014).

Rebuilding during the transformation phase provides an opportunity for leaders to adapt “flexibly and strategically to changes in the environment, in order to secure the ongoing improvement of the school” (Professional Practice: Leading improvement, innovation and change, AITSL 2014, p. 17). In this phase, schools have a chance to refocus, re-energise and try new ideas (Smith & Riley 2012, p. 64). This involves learning and growing from the experience, and possibly experimenting with a new vision, values and culture. In this way, the recovery period can become an opportunity for transformation – to ‘build back better’ (BBB) by integrating disaster reduction and management strategies into the ‘restoration’ and ‘revitalisation’ of systems and communities to build resilience for future crises (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery n.d.; United Nations General Assembly 2016). For example, the current COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that rebuilding is not only about physical infrastructure, but about the health, safety and wellbeing of individuals and school communities.

Determining what has worked and what hasn’t and deciding what to cut, keep or further develop are key considerations to support learning and growth following a crisis. That is, the period of transformation is also about retaining any successful new practice that emerged during the crisis, to build the ‘new normal.’ An important role for school leaders in this process is to broker agreement on what ‘building back better’ or the ‘new normal’ should look like, ensuring it centres on the needs of students (Mutch 2014). Taking the time to reflect and learn from a critical incident is, therefore, an valuable exercise, both in terms of ensuring the school leader’s voice is part of the review that will inevitably follow a crisis or incident, and as an optimal time to revisit a school’s disaster/crisis policies (Myors 2013