This course aims to encourage students to reflect upon what constitutes effective leadership in schools, especially within a constantly shifting reform environment, and to construct their own ‘theories’ of effective leadership. A range of established and emerging approaches and understandings of leadership are explored and analyzed in relation to the assorted contexts within which leaders lead. While recognizing the importance of the principalship the course assumes that leadership resides and operates across various levels within and outside traditional school boundaries and that teacher leadership is an important area of study. Areas covered include strategic and ethical leadership, panel leadership, leadership for learning and comparative, cross-cultural understandings of leadership. The course attempts to locate school leadership at the local level within a broader national, regional and international perspective. Through a combination of case studies, journal writing, problem-based cases, experiential activities and self-guided learning students apply leadership knowledge to their own personal and school contexts.