Leadership as a Learning Profession: Igniting Innovation Through Collaborative Governance to Promote the Public Interest

• In Event: Leadership and Making Meaning

Abstract

This qualitative multi-site case study examined how some education leaders have experienced transformational reframing of how they conceptualize pressing problems and developed alternative, innovative approaches that were collaborative, responsive, and service-oriented. Extending Vygotsky’s concept of “play” to the role of creative imagining and exploration by key leaders, we see how tensions stemming from the “crisis of accountability” have led to the identification of and acting upon new frames of possibilities to improve governance and advance reform policies. In the process, these leaders extended and applied this evolving, more supple learning stance toward reconceptualizing their own roles and that of their organizations as they engaged in ambitious organizational redesign to become more responsive to the public’s needs.

Author

• Brenda Hood, University of Washington