Authors: Taeyeon Kim

DOI: 10.62670/2308-7668.2024.47.1.004

Source: Issue: vol. 47 No. 1: 29 March 2024 

Publisher: PE "Center of Excellence"

Document type: Research article

Abstract

This essay argues for the importance and key practices of humanizing leadership in the era of accountability. As schools exist within multi-layered education systems, tensions between topdown policy mandates and school leaders’ agency are inevitable. In such cases, humanizing leadership can restore the “human” aspects of teaching and learning that are often stripped by test scores, evaluative matrices and bureaucratic rules. Based on existing literature and multiple interview studies with educational leaders, this essay suggests key aspects of humanizing leadership: holistic approaches to student learning, investment in collective capacity, relationality to build community accountability, and ongoing reflexivity for assessing leadership values, vision and practices. These humanizing practices can help school leaders use their discretionary power to create more equitable and just learning environments by centering the needs of students.

Key words: humanizing leadership, accountability, collective capacity, community accountability, leadership reflexivity

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