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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1583773
This article is part of the Research TopicEducational Leadership and Sustainable DevelopmentView all 8 articles
The Energy that Drives Human Networked Organizations: A Model for Leading Schools to Thrive in Complex Times
Provisionally accepted- 1College of Education, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States
- 2Department of Quality Management and Mechanical Engineering, Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden
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Purpose: Developing organizational adaptability to address sustainabile development requires bold new management.mIn Education, school leaders are challenged to meet this paradigm shift amidst traditions of Newtonian views of organizing and industrial-based bureaucracy. Using Quantum physics as a theoretical lens, the authors introduce a model for leading schools as human-networked organizations, enabling them to become more responsive and adaptive to the evolving needs of students, businesses, and society.Method: The model is derived from an ethnography study of a private school in the USA, in which an existential-phenomenological approach, inspired by the work of Heidegger, was used to examine how educators describe the experience of working in a Human Networked Organization. The aim was to explore the phenomenon of magical energy that exists within this type of organizational structure to support its growth and sustainability over time.Results: Findings highlight the critical role of teamwork, strong relationships, continuous professional development, trust, and respect with shared leadership for sustaining a culture of interconnections that can help schools thrive and be responsive in complexity. The model for leading schools as human networked organisations integrates six main features that are visualized using energy from the atom as a metaphor to reflect the interconnections between functions and culture to promote adaptability and responsiveness.Discussion: Helping educational leaders shift from a Newtonian View of organizing to a System's View requires knowledge about energy systems. Quantum physics contributes insights that will assist educators in acquiring the knowledge and skills for leading in the 21 st century.
Keywords: educational leadership1, Systems Thinking2, network organizations3, teaming4, collaboration5, sustainable schoolin6
Received: 26 Feb 2025; Accepted: 10 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Snyder, Snyder and Mårtensson. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kristen Michelle Snyder, Department of Quality Management and Mechanical Engineering, Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.