Building the leaders we need: The role of presence, learning conditions, and andragogy in developing leaders who can change the face of public Pre-K through 12 education

Many researchers, educational practitioners, business leaders, and schools of education have weighed in on the essential attributes or characteristics of “good” leaders. Two characteristics that are often assumed to exist in good leaders are that: (1) they are reflective practitioners and (2) they have the skills to create change in others. Educational leadership programs of all types, including teaching master's and doctoral programs, often embed reflective activities into their coursework and offer courses that are intended to teach future leaders the concepts related to “change management.” Yet at the same time we claim to be building reflective practitioners who can enact change, we fail to create programs that are likely to produce these reflective practitioners who have the skills and content knowledge to create that change we seek in the public K-12 educational arena. This chapter argues for creating leadership development programs that are more intentional about creating practitioners who have the skills necessary to cause other adults to change their practices and improve instruction. It also outline the elements that are essential for any leadership program to create leaders who will be able to profoundly change public K-12 education from the classroom to the principalship to the district level administration.