Changing Leaders’ Educational Hearts

Abstract

This article was written as a statement of position regarding educational leadership. It is a research and refinement of a framework that can happen via a heart metaphor. It takes a proactive stance, blending the tasks of managing education with the human encounters of educators during their day-to-day teaching and learning. It is proposed that leading and leadership are at the heart of managing all types of education from early childhood settings to high schools to universities. This proposition varies from an established business management approach by creating a leadership framework centred with a feminine, but not necessarily feminist, heart with four chambers and multiple heartbeats. It proclaims that leading ought to be the educational lifeblood that guides and flows into planning, organizing and monitoring teachers’ work. This is a heartfelt message for change that may seem light-hearted to some readers.