Moral Leadership Under Sustained Threat: A Theoretically Grounded First-Person Account of Crisis Leadership in an International School

Abstract

Bruce H Knox

This paper presents a firstperson, theoretically grounded account of leading a large, academically elite international K–13 school through sustained civil conflict during the Bougainville crisis in Papua New Guinea. Drawing on contemporary educational leadership theory—including moral leadership, relational trust, adaptive leadership, traumainformed practice, and education in emergencies—the paper examines how leadership presence, radical transparency, relational care, and ethical contraction enabled the school to sustain academic excellence and human dignity amid prolonged instability. Over a twoyear period, enrolment declined from approximately 1,800 to 650 students, necessitating repeated restructuring and ethical decisionmaking under sustained threat. The paper contributes practitioner-scholar insight into best-practice leadership in fragile and conflict-affected educational contexts.

This story is also told through musical performance, with crafted song lyrics and musical production. The following link will take you to this part of the presentation. https://heyzine.com/flip-book/1fd91b3500.html

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