Killing me softly: the ‘making up’ of the educational leader

Abstract

The paper explores the call to use the emotions more fully in the interests of excellent leadership, through understanding why and how they have become desirable in the performance of educational work. The analysis that is presented seeks neither to endorse nor reject out of hand the new forms of leaderliness that are evoked through the call to be more in touch with the emotions. Rather, it elaborates the ‘making up’ of this demeanour, and how it links to broader shifts in organizational culture. The paper probes this new leaderliness as a historically situated search for distinction, one that is rendered both visible and desirable through multiple forms of knowledge production. The analytic presented raises questions about the ‘fine tuning’ processes of self‐audit as a central aspect of this knowledge production, including the ways in which the desire to be a warm and passionate leader is acquired and promulgated.

Notes

1. See, for example, the Report on the Ontario Principals' Council Leadership Study at http://www.eiconsortium.org/research/opc_leadership_study_final_report.htm#central_findings.

2. This notion of communicative competence is a far cry from that of Jurgen Habermas 30 years ago in that it evokes a performative agenda as distinct from a class‐based political one.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erica McWilliam

Erica McWilliam is Professor of Education and Assistant Dean of Research in the Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Australia 4059. Email: [email protected]. A former teacher in Australian secondary schools, she has published widely on pedagogical studies and is editor of Eruptions, an interdisciplinary academic series with Peter Lang Publishing, New York. She is also an author of and commentator on satirical books on corporate practice.

Caroline Hatcher

Caroline Hatcher is an Associate Professor in the Brisbane Graduate School of Business at the Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Australia. Email: [email protected]. She has 20 years experience in teaching communication to business students and corporate clients. She is internationally recognized for her work in speech communication and organizational communication. Her co‐authored book, Speaking Persuasively, is used in classrooms and corporations and she regularly acts as a consultant to organizations in the private and public sector.