This study investigates the relationship between sustainable leadership styles and conflict management strategies within the context of Greek Public Sector. Specifically, it examines how collaborative, transformational, and authoritarian leadership styles impact workplace conflict resolution. The research adopts a case study methodology, focusing on Departments of Public Works in Greece, where data were collected through questionnaires. The analysis involved quantitative methods, including exploratory factor analysis (EFA), to examine the relationship between leadership styles and conflict management techniques. Results indicate that collaborative leadership is strongly associated with higher employee satisfaction and more effective conflict resolution, particularly in organizations with flat hierarchical structures. Transformational leadership fosters trust and open communication, which further enhance conflict resolution. On the other hand, authoritarian leadership styles correlate with increased workplace tension, lower satisfaction, and less effective conflict management, especially in high power-distance environments. The study also highlights cultural factors, such as the Greek emphasis on interpersonal relationships, as critical influences on leadership effectiveness. These findings underline the need for culturally adaptive and sustainable leadership strategies and provide practical recommendations for promoting harmony and productivity in Greek organizations.

This study investigates how inclusive leadership, mentorship, and digital tools shape conflict prevention and social cohesion within the Greek public sector. Employing a cross-sectional quantitative design, data were collected from 203 employees across municipalities, ministries, regional, and decentralized administrations. The survey instrument captured four dimensions: leadership and mediation for social cohesion, mentorship for the empowerment of vulnerable groups, use of digital tools, and the perceived social impact of inadequate conflict management. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to test direct and indirect effects, evaluate the explanatory and predictive power of the model, and explore the mediation mechanisms linking leadership, mentorship, and digital tools to social cohesion. The results demonstrate that both leadership and mentorship are positively perceived and significantly interrelated, jointly enhancing workplace cohesion and trust. Mentorship emerged as a critical predictor of digital tool adoption, highlighting its role as a bridge for digital inclusion and organizational innovation. In contrast, digital tools, despite their high importance in the model, remain underutilized and require further investment in training and integration. Poor conflict management is perceived as a major organizational risk, strongly linked to increased stress, diminished trust, and a deteriorated workplace climate. These findings highlight the value of integrating mentorship and inclusive leadership with mediation and digital technologies, supporting the development of hybrid strategies for conflict management. The study enriches theoretical debates on organizational resilience and social cohesion, while offering practical recommendations for modernizing public administration through participatory leadership, targeted mentoring programs, and the thoughtful adoption of digital solutions.

Purpose: This paper aims to develop an intersectional capability framework for women’s educational leadership across K-20 (kindergarten through higher education) settings. It argues that underrepresentation should be understood not only as a matter of unequal representation but also as the result of uneven institutional conditions shaping women’s access to, progression within and sustainability in leadership. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is conceptual in nature. It draws on scholarship on women’s educational leadership, intersectionality and institutional inequality to build an integrative framework centered on five institutional capabilities: access, developmental support, legitimacy, protective conditions and sustainability. Findings: The paper suggests that leadership pathways are shaped not only by formal opportunity structures, but by institutions’ capacity to make leadership genuinely reachable, credible, protected and sustainable. It further argues that these capabilities are experienced unevenly across women because race/ethnicity, class, disability, language, care expectations and institutional norms shape how opportunities are distributed and converted into leadership trajectories. Research limitations/implications: As a conceptual paper, the framework requires empirical testing across diverse educational contexts and across different groups of women. Practical implications: The framework supports more inclusive approaches to recruitment, leadership preparation, mentoring, retention and policy design across K-20 educational settings. Originality/value: The paper moves the discussion beyond representation by bringing intersectionality and capability logic into the same analytical framework. In doing so, it offers a more institutionally grounded account of women’s educational leadership inequality and proposes a set of propositions for future research.