New Beginnings, Repeated: The Continuing Search for Educational Leadership

Abstract

The purpose of this scholarly essay is to offer a number of logics of academic arguments as follows:  leadership as contested/seductive theories, leadership as an organizing activity, and leadership as praxis. Each academic argument presents its own theoretical, communicative and practical challenges, often necessitating a beginning again in search of leadership’s ontological status; that is, in what sense is leadership real?  Methodologically, the authors rely on asking pragmatic and constructivist questions (i.e. what difference does it make?) regarding problematic relationships among diverse researchers and between themselves and practitioners. With some amount of courage and a great deal of ignorance, the authors jump into the rabbit hole of relational sociology, leaving answers as next steps to the wisdom of our readers