TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose A plethora of principal development programs based on myriad leadership theories currently abounds in many educational jurisdictions globally. Today’s principals, consequently and fortuitously, often feel less isolated and better supported that has been indicated in school leadership research over the past two decades. The purpose of this paper is to discover, however, how principals, through well-designed postgraduate study, can effectively become the transformational leaders, schools regularly require of them.Design/methodology/approach Action research involving postgraduate leadership students at an Australian university over a two year period, involved three cycles: identification of leadership learning needs, introduction of innovations to their learning and identification of the transformative learning which contributed to their leadership development.Findings Transformative learning impacts significantly on transformational leadership development. This happens when disorienting dilemmas challenge and open minds to possibilities, and paradigmatic assumptions are questioned. The ensuing awareness enables leaders to demonstrate characteristics of transformational leadership especially the dimension of individualised consideration.Originality/value Few studies have aligned transformative learning with transformational leadership theory, but this paper found that school leaders benefit from transformative learning in their quest to become such a leader. The scariness of a metaphoric principal bungee-jump could ultimately lead to rocket launching of the most transformative kind.
VL  - 33
IS  - 7
SN  - 0951-354X
DO  - 10.1108/IJEM-09-2018-0288
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-09-2018-0288
AU  - Christie Michael
AU  - Simon Susan
AU  - Graham Wayne
AU  - Call Kairen
AU  - Farragher Yvonne
PY  - 2019
Y1  - 2019/01/01
TI  - Bungee jumping and rocket launching: Transformative learning for today’s transformational school leaders
T2  - International Journal of Educational Management
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 1610
EP  - 1624
Y2  - 2024/05/05
ER  -