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The purpose of this manuscript is to explore an assignment given to students in an online gender and leadership graduate course as a tool to help them think critically about how music influences perceptions of gender roles in both society and leadership.

The assignment directs students to review the current Billboard “Hot 100” chart, which lists the top 100 songs in the United States each week based on sales and streams. Students are prompted to identify a song with gendered themes and discuss how the song portrays women and/or men, what gender stereotypes the song supports or refutes, and whether the messaging is positive or negative in nature. Finally, the students discuss ways that the message in the song could influence the listener’s opinion about gender stereotypes and what effect that could have on gendered leadership issues.

Students use this assignment as an opportunity to apply the course material that relates to the importance of gender representation and the influence of media on gender issues in leadership.

Recommendations are provided to inspire creative ideas for leadership educators who seek to prepare students to understand organizational challenges related to gender issues in leadership.

The issue of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been on the rise in recent years, with concerns being raised by various stakeholders about its potential effects on education and the environment. However, little research has been done into school leaders' fundamental challenges in addressing ESD.

A qualitative, single-case study was embarked on to examine the experiences of Malaysian school leaders who actively engaged ESD in their schools. The data were collected by using semi-structured interviews among four school leaders in schools involved in Johor Sustainable Education Action Plan (JSEAP). A thematic analysis was used to understand the challenges and later drive the strategy used to overcome those challenges.

This preliminary study revealed that the principals perceived the ESD's four main challenges: encouraging positive thinking and passion, acquiring ESD knowledge, developing system thinking, and curriculum adaptation. Based on this study's findings, school leaders need to make concerted efforts to overcome these challenges, such as finding best practices, encompassing support systems, and exploring innovative partnerships to address ESD effectively in their schools.

This paper is limited to a case analysis of the selected schools and cannot be generalized to a larger population.

The results of the study may be of interest to other school leaders and educators who are concerned about ESD and its role in their schools, as well as to other academics who are interested in the topic of ESD and the challenges faced by school leaders in implementing sustainable practices.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study investigating ESD challenges in the Malaysian context. The novel finding helps the readers understand the recent phenomena of ESD implementation better and, at the same time, compare it to other settings.