Transformational Leadership in Planning Curricula

Planners are expected to be ethical, advancing socially-responsible citizenship-based practices. They must also have a keen understanding of the implications of top-down policy decisions on communities. A Planner is a public servant. Public servants require a mastery of techniques for community engagement: involving a wide range of people in making decisions, an ability to work with the public and articulate planning issues to a wide variety of audiences, as well as the ability to function as a facilitator when community interests conflict. These skills call for a theoretical foundation in transformational leadership, but students will not learn transformational leadership unless the curriculum deliberately teaches and models it. This research considers the intersection of three major themes in the pedagogy of Planning: sustainable communities, transformational leadership, and community engagement. The intersection, a critical Planning pedagogy, should be a guiding principle of all Planning curricula. Although this is a case study, and its findings limited to one program, the framework can be explored as a means to examining transformational leadership as a means to advancing socially-responsible citizenship-based practices in Planning curricula