**Abstract**

Our focus in this chapter is the experience of international students in higher education in the Western contexts. The challenges faced by these students as a result of colonial attitudes and approaches in educational leadership are outlined. We ask how we can enact transformative leadership to support these students. We outline the dimensions of transformative leadership and review the postcolonial analyses of the challenges faced by these students. We then propose a theoretical framework, Pracolonialism, that allows us to see these students in their fullness as students and as having the potential to become "more fully human." Pra-colonialism thus can enable us to enact the vision of transformative leadership in creating educationally humanizing conditions for international students.

**Keywords:** transformative leadership, international students, higher education
