The roles of the educational leader are many: coach, teacher, counselor and sometimes
parent. The tools of the trade are equally varied: counseling, revitalizing, sharing, teaching,
leading and pointing the way. Leading means articulating a vision and then creating the structure
for that vision to come to fruition. As an educational leader, one must be willing to serve,
serving those around one and subordinating oneself to the vision and best interests of the
organization. The following quotation epitomizes what educational leadership for the 21st
century should be:
The new view of leadership in learning organizations centers on subtler and more
important tasks. In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and
teachers. They are responsible for building organizations where people
continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and
improve shared mental models-that is, they are responsible for learning (Senge,
1990, p.340)