Educational leaders as caring teachers

Abstract

Good leadership varies with the sort of enterprise to be led. We would not put the CEO of a large clothing manufacturer, inexperienced in warfare, in charge of a military expedition. Now and then highly successful people from one field are recruited to lead an entirely different enterprise, but their duties are usually limited, and often they are mere figureheads. At the level where field-related decisions must be made we need leaders who know the field. Leadership in education requires both breadth and depth of knowledge about education. At the very least, an educational leader should have a defensible position on the aims of education, on a theory of motivation and on what constitutes ethical practice.