What will educational leaders need to lead well into the future?
There is a growing sense across education that the challenge facing school leaders is not simply that there is more to do. The environment in which principals are being asked to lead is itself changing.
Recent research from Sydney Executive Plus at the University of Sydney Business School, The 2026 Skills Horizon, describes this period as a “decade of disorientation.” Drawing on conversations with more than 150 leaders and executives, alongside analysis of global reports, media and major conferences, the research explores what leadership may require into the future.
It is particularly relevant to education.
Principals are navigating emerging technologies, changing expectations, increasing accountability, shifting trust and complexities that do not always fit neatly within existing policies or processes.
Over the next six weeks, bower(schools) will explore several ideas from the research through an educational leadership lens:
- The Five Shifts reshaping leadership
- The Four Leadership Clashes
- Emerging Skills for the future
- The Four “Blobs” of interconnected capabilities
- The Grounded Leader
- Grounding Leadership in Practice through clear protocols and decision-making structures
Perhaps future-ready leadership is not about predicting every complexity.
It may instead be about having structures and protocols that help leaders ask: What is happening? Who is responsible? Who has authority? What are the boundaries? And what happens next?
Next week: The Five Shifts reshaping the environment in which educational leaders operate.
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