ABSTRACT
This chapter affords aspiring and practicing educational leaders with a blueprint to guide and assist their engagement in focused, courageous, and fearless leadership action, examining assumptions around the implicit and explicit pathways to leadership opportunities in their particular tertiary organizations. The chapter invites educational leaders to participate in a range of reflexive activities wherein they learn about characteristics of Applied Critical Leadership as a research-based theory-to-practice approach toward culturally responsive, socially just, and equitable leadership practice. Leithwood and Riehl have contributed a considerable amount of research in the field of educational leadership. Their research findings tell us that successful educational leaders set direction for their organizations, actively develop people and the organization, respond to opportunities and challenges that arise from accountability measures, and respond effectively to opportunities and challenges that come as a result of educating diverse groups of students'. Applied Critical Leadership is an approach or way of thinking about culturally responsive leadership for social justice and educational equity.
