ABSTRACT
This chapter draws upon the biographical and archival data gathered on connoisseurs from a variety of fields, such as the arts, history and leadership and in international educational contexts before the 21st Century. It presents the information learned in the interviews of school leaders in Australia and America and compares it to the dominant management model in schools today, a derivative approach called managerialism. The main focus of managerialism is efficiency. An alternative vision to the conceptualization of the field of educational administration/leadership is long overdue. Leadership connoisseurship offers one promising conceptual alternative to this problem. Managerialists confront challenges by working to extend their control of the uncertainties in organizations. They find solace in quantification because it eliminates the need to become emotionally involved in decision-making contexts. Artists look forward to challenges. It is instructive to note that in the early 1980s, a group of leading scholars in public administration gathered together in Blacksburg, Virginia, and issued The Blacksburg Manifesto.
