Transformative Leadership: A Primer both delivers a complete and
engaging overview of transformative leadership and also clearly
distinguishes it from other popular approaches to leadership. Hence,
this will be the text of choice for many graduate courses in educational
leadership. Carolyn M. Shields shows how the tenets of transformative
leadership interact with one another, and how they provide a lens for
leadership that offers an excellent, inclusive, equitable, and socially
just education for all students. Using anecdotes and narratives drawn
from empirical research, as well as current data, Dr. Shields
establishes how transformative leadership comprises a comprehensive
approach to leadership in highly diverse contexts, and how it can
empower students who are traditionally marginalized due to race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, home language, or
religion. Accepting a mandate for educational change, reconstructing
knowledge frameworks, and redistributing power in more equitable ways
are starting points for transformative leaders. Changing the structures,
cultures, curricula, and pedagogies of the school to be more democratic
and emancipatory; acknowledging our interconnectedness and
interdependence with global neighbors; and accepting responsibility for
promoting both public and private good are processes that implement the
transformation. Taken together, these changes cannot be accomplished
without considerable collaboration, conversation, and moral courage. No
leader wanting to promote excellence and equity for all should be
without this primer that offers a new way of thinking about all aspects
of schooling, from facilities and fiscal issues to academic programs and
school policy. Transformative leadership offers a promising and robust
theory of change for all situations and contexts.
