Understanding Leadership through Poetics of Leadership - Searching for Personal Meaning and Authentic Understanding

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by ahduag

Examines educational poetics as an aesthetic inquiry to describe pedagogical practices that incorporate a poetics of leadership activity in preparing educational leaders. Grounded in John Dewey’s aesthetic experience, it links poetics as an “aesthetic mirror” to moral literacy and ethical frames of leadership, and uses imaginative projection to study the self as an ethical being. Presents research findings, exemplars of poetic elements, and four years of research data within school administration and K-12 education leadership preparation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages34

Reading Time1 h 26 min

AccessFree to download

Featured manuscript overview

Poetics, aesthetic experience, and Dewey

Poetics as moral literacy and ethical frames

Imaginative projection and ethical self

Pedagogical implications for leadership preparation

Democracy, meaning, and moral imagination

Research findings and reported data

Understanding Leadership through Poetics of Leadership: Searching for Personal Meaning and Authentic Understanding This FEATURED MANUSCRIPT has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and endorsed by the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of school administration and K-12 education. Patrick M. Jenlink Stephen F. Austin State University The author examines, using educational poetics as form of aesthetic inquiry, pedagogical practices that incorporate a poetics of leadership activity in preparing educational leaders. In particular, the author draws forward John Dewey’s philosophical positioning of aesthetic experience. Poetics involves a deepening of understanding and sensitivity to reasoning and imagination in leadership practice, and mirrors how events, actions, and the conduct of others can all express intellectual, aesthetic, and moral meaning. Poetics as an aesthetic mirror is examined in developing moral literacy and ethical frames of leadership. The author exploreshow leadership preparation and leadership practice have a significant poetic dimension with respect to the search for personal meaning and the development of authentic understanding. Imaginative projection enables the study of leadership to examine the self as an ethical being. Research findings and exemplars of poetic elements are presented in the study. Four years of research data are reported. NCPEA Education Leadership Review of Doctoral Research, Vol. 2, No. 2 – October 2015 ISSN: 1532-0723 © 2015 National Council of Professors of Educational Administration. This manuscript may not be used commercially or edited. When quoting portions of this text, full attribution to the author/s is required. Poetics is an aesthetical, emotional, and creative expression. I view it as an artistic, introspective immersion and exploration of one’s perception and understanding of self and an attempt to exemplify, as close as possible, the human condition relating to one’s philosophy of leadership. (Toby, A Doctoral Student) Poetics as imaginative projection, when merged pedagogically with leadership preparation, translates, in part, as a “process of active response to the world, involving a deepening understanding and sensitivity” to democracy, and “mirrors how events, actions, and the conduct of others can all express intellectual, aesthetic, and moral meaning”(Hansen, 2004, p. 122) . Dewey (1958), in his book Experience and Nature, is instructive in this respect: “Poetic meaning, moral meaning, a large part of the goods of life are matters of richness and freedom of meanings, rather than of truth; a large part of our life is carried on in a realm of meanings to which truth and falsity as such are irrelevant”(p. 411) . Kearney (1968), writing in The Wake of Imagination, helps us to understand the value of a poetics for leadership preparation, and of poetic imagination: It is the willingness to imagine oneself in the other person’s skin, to see things as if one were, momentarily at least, another, to experience how the other half lives. . . . The poetical imagination equally empowers us to identify with the forgotten or discarded persons of history. It invites excluded middles back into the fold, opens the door to prodigal sons and daughters, and refuses the condescending tolerance of the elite. . . . the saved towards the damned. The poetical imagination opposes the apartheid logic of black and white. (pp. 368-369) A poetics for leadership preparation provides a way of examining the importance of imagination in leader preparation and learning, deepening meaning that is concerned with the work of leading in educational settings. Analyzing the problems confronting society, Dewey (1931) argued that what is wrong, lies “. . . with our lack of imagination in generating leading ideas. Because weare afraid of speculative ideas, we do, and do over and over again, an immense amo

FAQs

What is the central focus of the paper?

The paper examines epistemological and pedagogical implications of poetics as imaginative projection in preparing educational leaders.

How does the author connect poetics to leadership preparation?

Poetics is presented as an aesthetic mirror that deepens understanding and sensitivity in leadership practice, supporting moral literacy and ethical frames in educational settings.

What research materials does the study provide?

It presents research findings and exemplars of poetic elements, reporting four years of research data.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by ahduag