Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn

Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Book Series

Series Editors: Jessie L Moore and Peter Felten

Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn is meant to be used as much as read by individuals in reading groups, workshops, seminars, and classrooms. It is designed as a "syllabus" that asks readers to consider questions associated with the theory and practice of leadership, and in particular the metacognitive practices of leaders (i.e., the ways in which they think about and learn leadership).  

The book brings together scholars and administrators who examine not only what they have learned about leadership, but how they learned it through experience, theory, identity, and relational work. Part 1 focuses on learning from experience, highlighting leadership without authority, teaching-informed leadership, listening, care, and navigating systemic inequities. Part 2 bridges theory and practice, drawing on feminist, Black, queer, and critical frameworks to reimagine institutional change, belonging, and transformation. Throughout, contributors foreground leadership as adaptive, relational, and values-driven, inviting readers to reflect on their own identities, commitments, and theories of change as they learn to lead in complex institutions.

LINDA ADLER-KASSNER is Associate Vice Chancellor of Teaching and Learning; Faculty Director of the Center for Innovative Teaching, Research, and Learning; and Distinguished Professor of Writing Studies at UC Santa Barbara. She has published thirteen books, including Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies and Writing Expertise: A Research-Based Approach to Writing and Learning Across Disciplines, both with Elizabeth Wardle.

CHRIS W. GALLAGHER is Professor of English at Northeastern University in Boston. He has published widely on teaching and assessing writing and on learning and institutional change in K-12 and higher education. He is the author or co-author of five books, including College Made Whole: Integrative Learning for a Divided World.