Inviting Educational Leadership: Fulfilling potential and applying an ethical perspective to the educational process

Abstract

This book takes the position that leadership is about people, and educational leadership is about the caring and ethical relationships between and among people, institutions and the larger society. Inviting educational leadership is about the special ethical quality of relationships needed to appreciate individ uals and call forth their potential in their personal and professional lives. At present, there is a deep-seated struggle going on for the heart of schooling. Some argue that schools should be run like businesses, with students seen as either raw material to be shaped or customers to be satisfied. Others oppose this and say it should be business as usual in schools. They feel that the schools we have are as good as they get. The way we presently do things is all we dare hope for. Although acknowledging that there are productive business prac tices from which educators can learn (and also practices from institutions outside the business domain), and believing that there are many current worthwhile schooling practices on which we need to build (and many from which we need to move), this book takes the position that both these perspec tives are short-sighted and miss the educational heart of schooling for a democratic society.