Whether you’re a veteran administrator, or a younger person only contemplating getting into academic leadership, you’ll want to read and reflect on this book. You’ll be helped to know what to expect as typical for someone who accepted the leadership call. You’ll know to watch for and learn from your mentors. You’ll become aware of the universality of significant leadership-journey challenges. You’ll be better prepared for setbacks and wounds to your self-esteem. You’ll be inspired to both accept and surmount challenges and to spot opportunities to provide assistance and comfort to others. Best of all, you’ll be better equipped to enjoy the journey.

The Department Chair

When people take the time to see and write their leadership experience as a journey, it is more than a moving experience—it can increase their emotional intelligence and enhance their personal and professional capacity. This book is based on research but it is very practical. It can and should be used. Personally and professionally, I admire it. The research potential of the original materials presented in this book are deserving of further exploration. The potential for the approach that Mullen, English, and Kealy describe could also significantly enhance team-building and development in groups where more knowledge of each other’s non-cognitive skills may enhance the capacity to be creative and open.

Karen Seashore Louis, professor emeritus, Beck Chair of Ideas in Education, Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, University of Minnesota

Mullen, English, and Kealy’s powerful book is a strong reminder that leadership is very much a human-centered enterprise. The Leadership Identity Journey: An Artful Exploration is an absorbing scholarly book that draws on Joseph Campbell’s universal mythology to understand leadership as a journey. Based on interviews with public school leaders, the researchers use visual data to prompt the emotional and subjective sides of leaders’ inner worlds. The result is a refreshing and novel approach to leadership studies that is likely to be of great interest to both practitioner leaders and those charged with leadership preparation. This creative work has my highest commendation.

Lisa C. Ehrich, associate professor of educational leadership, School of Cultural and Professional Learning, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology