ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview on finding the meaning of educational leadership, and women in leadership. It explains that the main focus of the book is to show that all forms of educational leadership, ranging from transactional to transformational leadership, are insufficient to enact responsible human action, particularly addressing the combined issues of globalisation (and democratisation) and equitable redress and transformation whether in relation to leading schools or universities. Higher education has not escaped the dogma of managerialist forms of leadership that consider educational leadership as ensuring 'fitness of purpose' and the production of graduates' 'attributes' that can serve a competitive globally driven labour-market economy. A decade after Giroux's article, citing the emergence of a variety of new perspectives and approaches, Biesta and Miron assert that the study of educational leadership appears to be in the midst of transformation, which includes critical theory, hermeneutics, feminism, (critical) pragmatism, and postmodernism/poststructuralism.
