This qualitative study examines how leadership and organizational dynamics cultivate lecturers’ readiness for change in higher education. Drawing on transformational leadership theory, it explores the interconnected influence of leadership style, organizational culture, and perceived organizational support on 20 English-language lecturers in an Israeli college that has recently faced multiple overlapping changes: the national transition to CEFR-aligned instruction, the shift to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the institutional and emotional disruptions caused by wartime conditions. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a thematic content-analysis approach. Findings reveal that lecturers’ openness to reform was strengthened by leadership characterized by competence, emotional intelligence, and accessibility; by a communicative and developmental organizational culture; and by perceived institutional care and support. Together, these dimensions fostered a sense of secure attachment to the organization-an underexplored relational mechanism linking leadership and readiness for change. The study contributes to leadership theory by proposing that Attachment Theory offers a valuable interpretive lens for understanding how relational trust and emotional security may support adaptive capacity in educational institutions. Implications are discussed for leaders seeking to sustain reform during crisis and instability through relational, emotionally attuned leadership practices.  

Binary classifications of teaching as transmission or constructivism obscure how participation, authority, knowledge practices, and conceptual work can vary within one lesson. This article introduces the social, procedural, epistemic, and conceptual (SPEC) framework for episode-level lesson analysis. SPEC was developed through a structured purposive theory synthesis rather than an exhaustive systematic review. A documented corpus of foundational traditions, observation systems, and targeted verification sources was compared using explicit inclusion, boundary, and disposition rules. Candidate constructs were assigned by observable target; three indicators per dimension were retained as a parsimonious authorial proposal; and qualitative descriptors were generated from theoretically warranted adjacent distinctions checked against cross-dimensional counterexamples. The dimensions are analytically distinguishable but potentially related. Their descriptor codes form non-additive, non-normative profiles rather than composite scores or judgments of teaching quality. An instructional episode is the primary unit; a hypothetical transcript illustrates indicator coding, opportunity/evidence flags, and rejection of nearby alternatives. SPEC is an initial conceptual proposal requiring operationalization, reliability examination, and validity testing. Ordering, thresholds, and cross-domain use require study before evaluative application.