**2.3 Transformative leadership as a gateway to success for international students**

Transformative leadership is "distinct from other theories such as transformational or transactional leadership" ([39], p. 558). Shields [39] advocates for learning in contexts where all participants' overall development and well-being are promoted, along with an orientation to social justice. Such transformative practices emerge out of what Blackmore [40] refers to as the "politics of difference" (p. 26). Carolyn Shields [39] describes transformative leadership as including both local and global perspectives that attend to the learning and well-being needs of all participants; deconstructing knowledge frameworks and power relations, especially those that contribute toward inequity; offering a balance of critique and hope; working toward "liberation, emancipation, deep democracy, equity, and justice" while also working toward achieving organizational goals that foster inclusion (p. 2). Such leadership is critically transformative, and mindful of possible requirements for significant and systemic change to improve well-being for all participants and the best means of implementing such changes. Maxine Greene [7] asserts that our role as educational leaders is to assist students in becoming "citizens of the free world–having the capacity to choose, the power to act to attain one's purposes and the ability to help transform a world lived in common with others" (p. 32). Greene's advocacy resonates as a foundation of transformative leadership, which focuses on "not only what *can* be done … but also on what *should* be done for a better and more just society" ([7], p. 21). Since our focus is on students, Blackmore adds, "What leaders *can* do is transform unequal conditions of power and resources … that may enable others to mobilize their sense of agency" ([40], p. 23).
