ABSTRACT
There are many ways that Kierkegaard can be approached in terms of educational leadership and emotion in higher education. Given the obvious space limitations of this chapter, I have decided to focus on the passionate individual as educational leader. But such a discussion cannot be successful unless it incorporates Kierkegaard’s notion of passion as truth that is unavoidably related to both a discussion of subjectivity (feeling) and, in turn, its relatedness to objectivity. Kierkegaard’s great work on the shared emotion of anxiety, and its corollary despair, cannot be dealt with in this chapter except in a very brief cursory manner and only as it relates to the aforementioned topics (for a more detailed discussion see Kierkegaard 1980; Senyshyn 1999; Senyshyn and O’Neill 2001). No one can be surprised to learn that Kierkegaard’s thinking is labyrinthine in nature and inextricably linked and inseparably fused to the total summation of his thought. It is in this remarkable complexity that Kierkegaard’s thought is so highly valued for all individuals working in the field of educational leadership.
