Many studies have shown that the shift from contact teaching to fully online teaching has had many negative effects on teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the pandemic has also had an effect on leading teaching in higher education institutions, there has not been much empirical research on leaders’ experiences during a pandemic. The present study brings out the voices of academic leaders themselves and how they experienced the pandemic in the light of leading teaching that is provided exclusively online. To examine the variety of degree programme directors’ experiences, open-ended questions were asked and analysed using content analysis. Seven dimensions of experiences were detected, and they represented negative, positive and neutral experiences. The present study shows that higher education leaders need more guidance, training and support to face crisis situations and develop their skills, especially to communicate effectively, but at the same time to do so collaboratively and in an informal way
