Learning to Lead Democratically: A Democratic Imperative for Leadership Preparation 103ership-education programs as public spaces in which democratic pedagogy is enacted are re-
sponsible for linking learning and social transformation, providing conditions for students to
learn the dispositions and capacities necessary to become democratic citizens. As Giroux
(2003) argued, “in this sense [leadership] becomes performative and highlights considerations
of power, politics and ethics fundamental to any form of teacher-student interaction” (p. 11).
This means rethinking leadership education as a form of socially engaged responsibility and
“proposes that [leadership] education is a form of political intervention in the world and is
capable of creating opportunities for social transformation” (p. 11).
As leadership educators, before we are able to examine the implications of a democratic
imperative for leadership education, we must be able to envision our work in relation to the
transformative agency of education in forming a democratic society. We must also acknowl-
edge the social realities of our work as situated within a political agenda, an agenda upon
which we have little influence. This political agenda has served to narrow or strip away alto-
gether many of the structures that would nurture the means to implement a democratic im-
perative. It is in acknowledging the present reality of democratic constraint achieved through
political oppression served by agendas that seek to de-democratize education that the author
of this paper explores the implications of a democratic imperative for faculty of leadership
preparation and envisions the ideals and practices necessary to prepare educational leaders to
serve as transformative social agents.
In working to foster a democratic imperative, leadership educators must attend to issues
commonly associated with social progressivism, if we are to facilitate and sustain those edu-
cational ideals held in common by community members. Whether working within university-
based or alternative preparation programs, we must creatively attend to fostering social
agency through the types and nature of the learning experiences our candidates experience in
preparing to become education leaders. As transformative cultural agents, we must broaden
the scope of activity within our reach to address public issues that influence student learning
and serve to diminish the realization of the democratic ideals established through public de-
mocratic dialogue. Leaving the narrow agenda of defending our academic interests and disci-
plines, leader educators must become actively involved in confronting those civil issues that
impact access to educational equity and opportunity. We must take a stance against social
practices and structural elements that diminish the right of every teacher and student to de-
velop to his/her fullest potential.
CONCLUSIONS
Dewey (1916a) argued that a free, open, critical dialogue among the greatest diversity of
groups or points of view possible, in a context of shared commitments that promote the capac-
ity for such dialogue, provides conditions for the possibility of warranted knowledge and par-
ticipatory democratic life. Such dialogues and forms of association presuppose “a large num-
ber of values in common, [so] all the members of the group must have an equable opportunity
to receive and to take from others. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and
experiences” (Dewey, 1916a, p. 84).
In Dewey’s 1927 essay, “The Public and Its Problems,” perhaps the most salient state-
ment is: the “prime condition of a democratically organized public is a kind of knowledge and
insight which does not yet exist” (p.166). Learning to lead democratically requires an under-
standing that democratic knowledge, inquiry, practice, and culture are a necessary grounding
of learning to lead democratically. Equally important, these four elements are essential in any
productive construal of the notion of leading for democracy. Democratic experiences in learn-