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Riggs, Mary Lynn

College of Education and Social Services

2004

Ed. D.

Today's educational leaders often report increased workload and job pressure. They talk of lost power and authority, lack of respect, and a shift in the locus of control. They came to the table to make a difference for children, and they are leaving feeling defeated. We can lay the foundation for responsive schools and communities shaped by compassion, justness, and resilience by engendering a strong, natural approach to leadership through recognition of the feminine voice and spirit. This dissertation shows how personal narrative forms an essential foundation of constructivist leadership. In it lies the potential for resiliency to emerge from leaders coming to know the power of their own story and being able to recognize themselves in the faces of others. A leader's energy stems from her ethic of care, and with it rests her power to evoke passion, build public understanding, and mobilize action within a community- the power of transformation. Scholarly personal narrative will be used to frame a coherent and hopeful perspective so that others might come to know the deep joy of leadership. It is intended to offer guidance and support with a light hand, an invitation for other educators to come to the table for conversation and reflection, a generative process leading to the discovery of their roots, the importance of their own epistemology, and a sense of efficacy in changing times.