Summer 2006     ISSN 1096-1453     Volume 10, Issue 2     Editorial (2)
Teaching Leadership and Teaching Leaders 
A Chinese philosopher, whom I paraphrase, stated that a leader is one who knows the 
self, knows the other, knows the task and knows the situation.  In this second AEQ 
issue of Teaching Leadership and Teaching Leaders, we share with the reader essays 
that deal with these four areas of leadership knowledge.  As the authors come to 
the knowing of self, other, task and situation from various frameworks, and cross 
boundaries of leadership knowledge, we hope the reader enjoys the essays on 
teaching leaders and leadership contained herein.  

Understanding the self is an important aspect of teaching leaders and developing a 
reflective approach to leadership.  Pennington explores the theoretical and 
philosophical foundations of an authentic collegiate leadership development course 
and shares recommendations for those who want to implement a personal leadership 
development course on their campus.  While Bon, Gerrick, Sullivan, and Shea describe 
their use of the case study method as a pedagogical approach to encourage and 
support dialogue and reflection on the role of values and ethics in educational 
leadership, Stader helps the reader understand how to develop morally competent 
school leaders using Habermas’ discourse ethics as a framework for reframing 
ill-structured problems.  Teaching leadership to individuals not yet identifying 
as leaders, according to Middlebrooks, requires a conceptual framework that 
provides opportunities for explicit lessons, implicitly emulates the processes of 
leadership, and facilitates students’ engagement in constructing a coherent 
understanding of leadership.  Middlebrooks provides an example of a creative 
problem-solving process as an effective pathway to engaging leadership.  
Additionally, Peckover, Peterson, Christiansen, and Covert report from their 
research on a professional development program their discovery that transformations 
in teacher thinking, problem solving and professional identity are aided by the 
structuring of long-range constructivist professional development practices.

Deal, Garger and Jacques examine the effects of leader/follower gender and how 
gender similarities and differences impact ratings of leader behavior.  
Interestingly, they discovered that female professors were rated higher in 
transformational leadership than were male professors who, in turn, were consistently
rated higher on transactional leadership.  In order to develop leaders engaged in 
active citizen democracy, Johnson, Kidd, O’Brien, and Shields utilize a model of 
applied political and civic leadership education based both in theory and practice, 
and discovered that students became more confident of their ability to become 
involved in political and community life after participating in their program.  
Brazer and Ross engage the reader with a case about teachers’ perceptions of the 
hierarchical or collaborative nature of decision making and how this perception is 
related to their beliefs about who has influence over decision making and the 
implications for educational leaders.  

When confronting the tasks of leadership, Cooner, whose purpose is to address the 
thinking that underlies the exercise of leadership, uses critical incident technique 
to explore themes in the principal internship and demonstrates the difficult, 
complicated and chaotic role of the school principal.  Bostock, on the other hand, 
argues the case for a Problem-Based Learning (P-BL) approach to the learning and 
teaching of Leadership by sharing the problems confronting two very different 
leaders, Mordechai Rumkowski and Josephine Baker, providing examples from P-BL and 
leadership theory.

Finally, with respect to knowledge of and in various situations, several authors 
attempt to cross the boundaries of theory and practice.  Barbour shares strategies 
and rationale for using film as a pedagogical technique to help students understand 
organizational theories and applications of those theories to the complex nature of 
leading in organizational settings.  Within organizational departments and divisions,
Rogers, Roberts and Cowan suggest that collaboration across professional orientations
can result in a shared framework of insights that intersect theory and practice, 
enhancing both student learning and faculty development.  Furthermore, Wamba argues 
that educators who incorporate action research in school leadership programs can 
narrow the theory-practice gap by involving students in solving real workplace-based 
problems.  

We hope that by sharing these intriguing glimpses of research, reflections on 
leadership practice and teaching practice, and creative teaching ideas that the 
reader will come away with a variety of understandings of how to teach leadership 
and leaders.  More significantly, however, it is the desire of this editor that 
teachers of leaders are also leaders in our fields, leaders who know ourselves, know 
the others (those with whom we work, lead, and teach), know our task, and know our 
situation.

JoAnn Danelo Barbour, Ph.D.
Professor of Educational Leadership, Texas Woman’s University

CFP for the next Teaching Leadership/Teaching Leaders issue, Summer 2007.
See Index to all published articles.