This paper provides an analysis of the leadership and planning strategies employed by school leaders during the Covid-19 Pandemic. It draws on a series of focus group interviews with school principals from all school types in Northern Ireland. Results derived from the study shows that despite the benefits of various modes of leadership such as distributed leadership and a consensus-based approach to educational provision that is increasingly promoted across many education systems; school leaders spoke of the need to revert to other modes of leadership in the form of situational leadership that quite frequently became the default strategy to cope with the multitude of challenges for school personnel during this period.

While the theory and subsequent benefits of distributed and networked leadership are not disputed, what is questioned is the fragmentary ways in which various modes of leadership are advocated across education systems. This leads to a more succinct question that we suggest should be considered in Northern Ireland and other jurisdictions; that is, what conditions, resources and supports are necessary to ensure that distributed leadership is not only perceived as yet another leadership strategy that can in the main, be implemented in unchallenging as opposed to challenging times.

本文分析了 Covid-19 大流行期间学校领导所采用的领导力和规划策略。它借鉴了对北爱尔兰所有类型学校校长的一系列焦点小组访谈。研究结果表明，尽管各种领导模式（例如分布式领导）和基于共识的教育提供方法都有好处，但这种方法在许多教育系统中得到了越来越多的推广；学校领导谈到需要以情境领导的形式恢复到其他领导模式，这种领导模式经常成为这一时期学校人员应对众多挑战的默认策略。

虽然分布式和网络领导的理论和随后的好处没有争议，但质疑的是在整个教育系统中倡导各种领导模式的零碎方式。这引出了一个更简洁的问题，我们建议北爱尔兰和其他司法管辖区应考虑该问题；也就是说，需要什么样的条件、资源和支持才能确保分布式领导不仅被视为另一种领导战略，而且大体上可以在没有挑战而不是充满挑战的时期实施。