Shaping a Strengths- Based Approach to Relational Leadership

Much of the contemporary research and theorising on educational leaders' practices has portrayed leadership as a relatively static set of interactions between entities. In contrast, the social constructionist literature revisits the organic, relational, and emerging becoming-in-the-world. This approach to leadership research has implications for the practices of leaders, leadership formation programs, research itself, and the position of the researcher. In this chapter, the authors argue that the formation of educational leadership is a critical, relational concern, to which considerable attention is warranted. The authors contend that rather than merely deconstructing the status quo, research through a relational lens engages in a co-re-constructing, or shaping, of our collective aspirations and the strategies we employ.