| Abstract [eng] |
This thesis examines how general education school principals in Lithuania experience and enact the transition from personal artificial intelligence (AI) use to professional and school-level practice. The object of the study is school leaders' leadership experiences in the context of AI use. The theoretical framework synthesises three approaches: technological leadership, organisational learning, and responsible AI use in education. AI leadership is used as a working analytical concept rather than an established theory. The study employs a qualitative interpretive approach and reflexive thematic analysis. Data was collected through 14 semi-structured interviews with director-level leaders of Lithuanian general education schools. The empirical analysis shows that the question posed in the title, whether AI use transitions from personal to professional practice , has no single answer: leaders' trajectories are not linear, and the transition is either undertaken or deliberately postponed depending on school conditions. Several transition stages emerge: proactive introduction of AI, direct professional initiation, a reactive turning point caused by students' AI use, action prompted by external guidelines, gradual assimilation, and the deliberate postponement of organisational regulation. These transition stages are offered as an analytical heuristic that helps a leader recognise where their school currently stands, not as a normative maturity model. The data shows that the foundation of AI leadership is not only technological or organisational competence. Its core is values-based: trust in the community, walking alongside teachers and students rather than ahead of them, and the non-delegable nature of human judgment. The findings indicate that AI integration in schools is not only a question for individual leaders but also a systemic education policy question. |
