This article proposes that leadership scholars spend less time talking and writing about what leadership is or isn't and instead spend more time trying to improve society. This can be done by critically examining and challenging the governing variables of the institutions within which people live. Once these governing variables or mental models are challenged and exposed, then positive change can occur. Leadership menas making a difference and leadership education means providing students the tools to affect change. Engaging in dialogue is a critical step in the leadership process, but what is truly needed is action. This article is a call for the praxis of leadership.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Bellah, R.N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W.M., Swindler, A., & Tipton, S.M. (1991). The good society. New York : Alfred A. Knopf.
2.
Bohm, D. (1965). The special theory of relativity. New York: W. A. Benjamin.
3.
Burns J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
4.
Carnegie Foundation For the Advancement of Teaching. (1989). The condition of the professoriate. Lawrenceville, NJ: Princeton University Press.
5.
Deming, W.E. (1990, Fall). In P. M. Senge The leader's new work: Building learning organizations. Sloan Management Review, 7, 3 - 22.
6.
Foster, W.F. (1986). The reconstruction of leadership. Victoria, Australia : Deakin University Press.
7.
Foster, W.F. (1989). Toward a critical perspective on leadership. In J. Smyth (Ed.) Critical perspectives on educational leadership (pp. 39-62). London: Falmer
8.
Higher Education Research Institute (1995). A social change model of leadership development. Los Angeles : University of California, Los Angeles Press.
9.
Hodgkinson, C. (1983). The philosophy of leadership. New York: St. Martin's Press.
10.
MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue. Notre Dame, IN .: University of Notre Dame Press.
11.
Rost, J.C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century. New York: Prager.
12.
Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline. New York : Doubleday.
