Leading for Sustainability Education in Complex Times: Theorizing Leadership within a Networked Learning System

• In Event: The Education Leaders We Need Now: Innovations in Leadership Development and Approaches to Leading

Abstract

This conceptual paper explores the evolving nature of educational leadership in response to global climate and sustainability challenges. It proposes that addressing these urgent and complex issues requires a paradigmatic shift in how leadership is theorized and enacted across education systems. Drawing from the Scottish policy and practice context, the paper reconceptualizes leadership as a systemic capacity embedded within a Networked Learning System (NLS). It argues for moving beyond traditional, hierarchical paradigms of leadership and toward distributed, adaptive, and relational forms of leadership that can support transformative sustainability education.

Authors

• Romina Madrid Miranda, University of Stirling

• Elizabeth Rushton, University of Stirling

• Letizia Riddell, University of Stirling