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The Phenomenon of Leading without Guidebook: Educational Leadership Practices of Philippine School Principals in Virulent COVID-19 Times

The school principals play a pivotal role in leading educational institutions. Their lived experience as educational leaders in the context of a virulent crisis, however, is largely unexplored. This paper sought to discover the essence of educational leadership practices of school principals in the context of the current COVID-19 crisis. Following phenomenology as a research design, the researcher explored the world of six Filipino school principals through interview procedures. The analysis method developed by Colaizzi (1978) was used. The results revealed six emerging themes of educational leadership practices during a crisis as follows: 1.) navigating the crisis with adaptive leadership; 2.) cultivating practices in crisis management; 3.) managing through the machine; 4.) freezing the standards and patterns; 5.) promoting inclusivity in the new normal, and 6.) caring first for what is essential. These themes form the basis of the description and structure of the phenomenon offered at the end of the paper. Considering the present scarcity of knowledge on how school principals respond in times of crisis, this paper provides insights into educational leadership practices within the context of the COVID-19 situation