Leading With Love at Booker T. Washington

President Barack Obama sits with Principal Alisha Coleman-Kiner, center, as they watch a performance by students, including Christopher Dean, left, at the graduation ceremony for Booker T. Washington High School on May 16 in Memphis, Tenn.

—Mark Humphrey/AP

By Alisha Coleman-Kiner

Shortly after I learned that President Barack Obama would be speaking at my high school’s commencement this spring, I began receiving a great deal of attention. The question on everyone’s lips: How did you make such massive gains at Booker T. Washington? The question revealed an underlying assertion that the presence of my students near the top of lists on high school completion and academic achievement is an anomaly. Although I was thrilled beyond belief by the opportunity to meet the president, a part of me was disturbed, angered even, by the low expectations for my Booker T. Washington High School babies. After all, children rise to the expectations we set for them; they thrive on the support we give them to meet those expectations.

But before we set high expectations for children, we have to love them.

Education theory and scholarship focus on typologies of effective leadership. Leadership styles and theories sometimes consider the human-interaction aspects of the work, but the idea of love, especially in school leadership, is largely absent. In academics and politics, we try to capture the idea of love by speaking and writing about “the ethic of care,” “caring adults,” and “emotional intelligence.” It is almost as if we are afraid to say that our work is a purely human endeavor—that our jobs are...