Courageous Leaders: Promoting and Supporting Diversity in School Leadership Development

This article examines the effect of the United Kingdom’s first LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) School Leadership programme. Based on the values of authentic leadership, promoting inclusion, celebrating diversity, accepting difference, challenging the status quo, and achieving social justice, the Courageous Leaders programme provided mentoring, training and support for LGBT teachers aspiring to become school leaders. Utilising Social Phenomenology as methodological framework, the article considers the written reflections of a single cohort of ten lesbian and gay teacher participants, to reflect on the way in which Courageous Leaders affected their professional identities and behaviours.