The Human Side of Digital School Leadership: A Dynamic Digital Leadership Competency Framework for School Leaders

Abstract

The rapid digitalization of schooling has heightened the emotional, psychological and ethical demands on school leaders, who must now serve as digital change agents while sustaining staff wellbeing and engagement. Existing digital leadership models are often overly technical or tool-oriented and underplay the human side of digital transformation, especially in systems with uneven digital readiness and rising performance pressures. This paper addresses that gap by proposing a dynamic digital leadership competency framework that foregrounds emotional, ethical and instructional dimensions and offers a human-centred lens on digital change. The framework is grounded in an integrative review of research on digital leadership, instructional leadership, emotional intelligence and competency modelling, complemented by insights from an earlier design and development research (DDR) project on digital leadership among Malaysian secondary school principals. It comprises a core domain, Self and Ethical Digital Leadership, and three interrelated outer domains: Visionary and Strategic Digital Leadership, Instructional and Learning-Focused Digital Leadership, and Data-Informed and Innovation-Oriented Digital Leadership. The core domain highlights leaders' self-awareness, emotional regulation, resilience and ethical use of technology and data as foundations for credible and sustainable digital change. Attending to this human core reshapes how digital leadership is enacted at strategic, instructional and innovation levels, with implications for teacher wellbeing, organisational culture and school climate. The framework offers scholars, policymakers and professional development providers a theoretically grounded, practice-oriented tool for strengthening the human side of digital school leadership.