Volume 11, Issue 2     Editorial
Teaching Leadership and Teaching Leaders The key topic of “Leadership” was designed from the onset to provide a forum for scholars to discuss their research related to the understanding of leading and leadership and the performance or practice of leading and leadership. In this third issue, we again have a set of interesting and thoughtful essays that provide the reader with examples of classroom practices that aid in developing leaders, from practice-based approaches to theoretically-grounded practices. Within a broader concept of programs and curricula for leader development, additionally, essayists provide frameworks into which teaching can be conducted. Finally, within the discussions of theory and practice, we include a set of essays that report findings from research on current leaders. We congratulate the authors, as we begin, by noting the Editor’s Choice for this issue, ‘This I Believe:’ Students on Leadership. In order to challenge and advance student leadership philosophies, authors Szwed, Goulet and Siniscalchi discuss their use of a This I Believe essay to elicit student beliefs and findings from their trial elicitation study. To further the understanding of how students perceive leadership, Blackwell and Williams demonstrate the use of concept maps that provide a pictorial representation of students’ mental models of leadership and to show change and growth in those mental models. Also working with undergraduate students, Garger and Jacques report on their study that investigated the impact of self leadership on undergraduate student performance. Among findings, they note that students’ transformational self leadership positively correlates with grade point averages. From his personal experience of learning and doing “case-in-point” teaching, Cox shares knowledge about how to use this method in leadership education, while Lease notes the importance of developing the skills of persuasion for future school leaders and discusses the elements of persuasion with practical suggestions as to how leaders can persuade effectively. From a professional improvement perspective, Bryant and Lockhart discuss faculty development in higher education in the form of a formalized mentoring program to improve effective teaching and leadership. Theoretically, Bowman argues for the use of Greenleaf’s philosophy of servant-leadership in the preparation of student teachers for their intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth. Iverson’s article details the use of a problem-based approach in a graduate course on leadership that focused attention on how leaders can mobilize adaptive work to respond to leadership challenges. Somewhat related to Iverson, Marquez-Zenkov, Corrigan, and Brockett discuss the preparation of teachers grounded in social justice theory. They suggest using activist-oriented traits with holistic evaluation methods of these characteristics in the form of a portfolio assessment system to develop teacher-leaders for urban settings. Barbour will help instructors understand how to use critical theory and ethnographic studies to develop critical and culturally reflective leaders who are able to understand complex groups and situations. Mulvihill provides a set of conceptual frameworks to underscore her contention that to prepare the 21st century professoriate to lead, an interdisciplinary redesign of graduate programs and curricula in all disciplines leading to faculty careers ought to occur. Nichols and Shorb demonstrate how sustainability learning models carry leadership theory into practice and demonstrate how students can interact with their communities as a means both to learning and facilitating forms of community-based leadership. From school community-based research, Brazer shares with readers from his case studies how prospective leaders can learn from the examples of superintendents to select committee members for enhanced productivity and to choose which role to play on a committee within a specific context. From a differing perspective, Brown and Gardner discovered from their study that followers tended to choose role models who exhibited authentic leadership attributes such as confidence, hope, optimism, resilience, high levels of integrity and positive values. There you have it, readers, a very nice blending of theoretical perspectives and practical approaches. German poet and novelist Goethe once stated, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” In this Summer 2007 issue of Academic Exchange Quarterly, the authors have tried to provide a set of essays that discuss the knowledge of leading, but know that this is not enough. We have shared examples of applied knowledge of leading from the classroom, but we cannot will students to lead. We have shared how leaders in their communities lead through our research on leadership; so now we challenge you, good readers. We hope you enjoy the essays herein. As you read and reflect on your own teaching and leadership, please consider sharing your research, theories and practices of teaching leaders and leadership, and your practices and knowledge of leading and leadership.JoAnn Danelo Barbour, Ph.D.
Professor of Educational Leadership, Texas Woman’s University
Feature Editor, Leadership
Editor, Academic Exchange Quarterly
CFP for the next issue Teaching Leadership/Teaching Leaders Summer 2008.