As many other European countries – and countries around the world – Estonia and Finland were forced to close their schools and make a rapid shift to remote learning in the spring 2020. Even though the decisions concerning the school closures were done on the ministerial level, a lot of the decision-making involving implementation of distance learning occurred at the local level. In the educational contexts of Estonia and Finland, the municipal education administrations and schools had the main responsibility for re-organizing the practices of schooling. Although many teachers and students were familiar with the use of technology in learning and instruction, this new situation challenged and tested their readiness to apply these methods on a daily basis (Pollock 2020).

The sudden and unexpected changes in schooling have affected the nature of leaders’ work at many levels. The era of COVID-19 pandemic has brought up challenges that have culminated in experiences of uncertainty and ambiguity (Marshall et al., 2020). The situation has called for more actions and practices that are directed to encouraging teachers, students, and other staff in relation to new practices and feelings of uncertainty (Pollock 2020). It has been of importance to prioritize the coping of others during these times of uncertainty (Beauchamp et al. 2021; Thornton 2021), to maintain a feeling of a community and nourish a positive sense of purpose and mutual support in the school. School leaders have been engaged in change and crisis management. The situation has required an ability to respond swiftly to the new demands brought up by the constantly evolving situation (Smith & Riley, 2012).

The COVID-19 era has been characterized by conflicting information. In addition, various means and methods of protection have increased the complexity of the situation in which school leaders work and make decisions (Beauchamp et al. 2021; Marshall et al. 2020).  Earlier studies suggest that leaders who view change and leadership in broad sense are more likely to successfully navigate their schools through turbulent times (Gurr & Drysdale 2020). It is the leader who has the responsibility for setting the direction for change and development of practices (Leithwood et al., 2020), and the process of decision-making for the direction has to pay attention to evidence and knowledge that are available (Gurr & Drysdale 2020). Uncertain times call for individual-level flexibility and ability to adapt to new situations (Beauchampt et al. 2021) and readiness to reassess and modify plans and inform the school community in a short notice (Gurr & Drysdale 2020; Marshall et al., 2020).  

The concept of “personal leadership resources” (Leithwood et al., 2012) refers to cognitive (e.g., systems thinking, problem-solving), social (e.g., ability to perceive and manage emotions), and psychological resources (e.g., self-efficacy, resilience, optimism). According to Leithwood and colleagues (2020) these resources can provide a framework through which a high proportion of variation in the practices enacted by school leaders could be explained. For example, in events that are stressful the psychological resources have more central role than in situations based on known routines. Further, Nokelainen and Tirri (2007) have suggested that leaders who are self-aware and capable of keeping disruptive emotions under control, probably adapt to new challenging situations and think positively.

This paper discusses school leaders’ experiences regarding their work as leaders during the COVID-19 school closures in Estonia and Finland in 2020. This study has been guided by the following research question:  What are the aspects of leadership that became central in Estonian and Finnish school leaders’ work during the remote learning period?

In spring 2020, both Estonia and Finland were experiencing a remote learning period, and researchers in both countries were working with a nationwide data collection regarding the experiences of school leaders, personnel, students, and guardians. The researchers decided on a joint set of questions for school leaders to be integrated into their national surveys, which included two open ended questions composing the data presented in this paper: What was the most challenging for you as a leader in this situation [school closures]? What are the qualities required of a leader in a change like this? Altogether 219 school leaders responded to the survey’s open-ended questions in Estonia and 775 school leaders in Finland. The data were representative in both countries regarding the demographic distribution of population, and respondents’ age and reported gender. Two researchers in Finland and two in Estonia were involved in the coding of the data. The analysis consisted of several steps, e.g., identification of issue-relevant meaning units, formulation of sub-themes based on the main ideas they were carrying. During the various rounds of meetings between the researchers, several sub-themes were suggested and discussed. The sub-themes were organized under five main themes: Making decisions, Re-organizing schoolwork, Communication, Giving support, and Self. To increase the credibility of the analysis, the researchers applied a constant peer-checking and calculated interrater reliability between two of the coders. The interrater reliability between Estonian coders was 0.780 (p < .001), 95% CI (0.664, 0.897) and between the Finnish 0.684 (p < .001), 95% CI (0.617, 0.751), of which both were considered ‘good’ (Cohen, 1988).

The findings show that a big share of school leaders reported experiences regarding three of the main themes: Communication, Giving support, and Self. However, there were some differences between the countries regarding the findings. For example, all leaders wrote about Communication in relation to two aspects, internal and external, of which the first was mentioned more often and covered leaders’ means for providing guidelines for the school community in terms of daily practices. This sub-theme also reflected on various ways of interaction with teachers, students, and homes. External communication was about instructions from the ministerial level, and aspects of communication with the local education administration and leaders from other schools. Under the theme of Giving support, the leaders told about technological encouragement and modes of emotional support. The sub-theme focusing on technology covered encouragement for teachers and students in the use of new platforms for learning and teaching, organizing short trainings for teachers, and was stressed more among the Estonian leaders. The Finnish leaders reported more factors that were coded under the sub-theme emotional support. The leaders’ responses included descriptions of how they needed to be available for teachers and students, encourage and listen to them, and provide a sense of security. The third often reported main theme Self consisted of four sub-themes (self-management, managing stress, envisioning, trusting others), of which self-management was the most emergent. Self-management was related to the increased workload of the leaders and came out in descriptions about the ways of prioritizing tasks and organizing them into more manageable forms and steering own workload. The overall emphasis on the findings indicates that instead of many descriptions covering detailed managerial tasks or practices of decision-making during the crisis, the leaders reported approaches that were composed of self-care, and caring and empathy for others.

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