Emerging competencies for school leadership in basic education: A bibliometric analysis

The aim of this study was to analyze the evolution, structure, and main thematic clusters of the literature on the development of capabilities among school leaders in basic education. To this end, a descriptive bibliometric analysis and thematic mapping were conducted based on 35 PDF files. After removing three duplicates, 32 unique records were examined, of which 14 studies were eligible because they addressed school leadership or management and competencies related to management, digital skills, socioemotional development, innovation, or artificial intelligence. Temporal evolution, language, geographical distribution, authorship, methodological design, source dispersion, and domain co-occurrence were analyzed. The results show that 64.3% of the studies were published between 2024 and 2026, while 71.4% were published in English. The 14 studies appeared in 14 different journals and involved 39 distinct authors, with an average of 2.79 authors per article, suggesting that the field remains fragmented. The most frequent domains were pedagogical leadership and strategic leadership and innovation (64.3% each), followed by communication and collaboration, as well as data and decision-making (57.1% each). To a lesser extent, digital competence and artificial intelligence (42.9%), emotional intelligence (28.6%), and ethics, equity, and inclusion (21.4%) stood out. The thematic network revealed a stronger convergence among strategic leadership, pedagogical leadership, decision-making, and digital competence. In conclusion, the emerging competencies of school leaders constitute a hybrid profile in which technical skills are integrated with instructional leadership, strategic judgment, relational capacities, and ethical governance. Nevertheless, gaps persist in longitudinal evidence, specialized instruments, and Latin American research, particularly in public basic education.