Abstract

This article investigates the applicability of the concept of teacher agency to school leaders. The COVID-19 crisis and emergency remote teaching (ERT) were selected as a study context due to their ability to reveal multiple educational challenges which could potentially highlight school leaders’ agency and its influence on managing educational crises. The study involved a multiple case study in subsidized Chilean schools, where data was obtained through semi-structured interviews using a protocol validated by expert judges. The data was then analyzed using grounded theory techniques, including inductive-deductive coding stages. The main findings reveal that the dimensions of teacher agency identified in the literature could also apply initially to school leaders, aligning with their conceptualization. Additionally, our data revealed that educational crises can be influenced by agentical actions of school leaders. Finally, we propose that since agency is a phenomenon that emerges from the material conditions in which educational participants deploy their actions, each great challenge experienced by agents in their material reality can probably give rise to new forms of agency. © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.