Who is an educational leader?

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend and present at ETFO's Learning Math in the Early Years conference in King City and we had wonderful keynote speakers - Dr. Juanita Copley, Dr. Ruth Beatty and Dr. Alex Lawson as well as fantastic breakout sessions by educators from around the province of Ontario.

At the same time, I am in the first year of my Doctorate of Education studies with the University of Western Ontario with a focus on Educational Leadership, and it got me to thinking - who is an educational leader?

Many of the research articles that we have been reading for our course seem to equate educational leadership with school administrator, but at this conference we were lead by teachers and Early Childhood Educators sharing their practice, curriculum consultants (like me) and instructional coaches and many 'knowledgable others' as Vygotsky would say.  So who is an educational leader?

In my mind, there are many people who are educational leaders - educators sharing their learning through social media or through conversations with colleagues; consultants and coaches co-learning with educators, professors in post-secondary guiding future educators, and administrators in our schools.

Have I forgotten any one?  Who do you consider to be educational leaders?

Visit Storify to see my summary of the ETFO conference.

                                               Image from venspired.com