This article explores the notion of integrative educational leadership, explains the ideas that underpin it and sets out the key principles for practice. Integrative educational leadership seeks out, understands, engages with and holds together the full range of individual and organisational characteristics, capabilities and motivations so that the institution can bring its full authority to the institutional primary task. Integrative educational leaders should: work to bring about integration in themselves; aim to develop integration in their teaching colleagues; extend their integrative educational leadership practice to those in the other systems – the students, the administrative staff, parents and other systems in the institution's wider environment; interact with those around them in a way that enables integration; endeavour to create and sustain an inclusive culture where different standpoints/perspectives are valued and included; seek to minimise all social defences; have a clear sense of the institutional primary task; seek to develop a 'holding environment' which works at the personal, inter-personal and the organisational levels and understand the complexity of their leadership environment.
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