Technology Leadership: Enhancing Positive Educational Change

The article is divided into four sections: Educational Leadership Now and Then, Transformational Leadership, Versatile Leadership, and Relational Leadership.

The Educational Leadership Now and Then begins by giving definitions of leadership, which include "influence", "developing potential and building community", and "a change or adaptive process to address conflicts in the values people hold, or to diminish the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they face." It then goes on to outline some of the changes that educational leadership has made over time, such as the change from a managerial style to one that also incorporates the instructional aspects that come with education.

Transformational Leadership is the type of leadership that focuses more on group development and vision and mission, with characteristics that center around change and the forming of relationships and the development/sharing of knowledge.

Executive Leadership is specific to executive leaders (as opposed to other types of leaders) and is primarily concerned with maintaining and coordinating the organization and concentrating on the organization's purpose and direction.

Versatile Leadership is the idea that a leader needs to have more than one approach to leadership and know when is the best time to use which approach and how to best use the approach needed for a situation. The example given is that a principal needs to have a military commander's ability to lead, a CEO's knowledge of management, a lawyer's ability to negotiate and reason, and an educator's ability to understand students.

The final leadership category is Relational Leadership, the leadership that needs to be aware and able to comprehend the various interpersonal relationships involving those who he or she is leading. There are listed six areas in which a leader must be capable: leading employees, work team orientation, managing conflict, knowledge of interpersonal dimensions, managing change in others, and being able to confront employee problems. A leader who is skilled in this form of leadership will be able to be compassionate to his/her employees, know how to relate to them and how to manage the relationships that form between them and between them and him/her, respect the personal values of the employees, and be able to put others at ease.

The NETS-A standard that is applicable here is the first standard, the standard of visionary leadership.