In this chapter, your thinking around leading partnerships will be challenged. Throughout this chapter, you will be supported to develop a critical understanding of how leadership can impact partnerships, both positively and negatively.In the chapters so far, you have explored conceptual and practical components of partnerships and the key aspects that lead to successful partnership work.We have explored how diversity can challenge us as well as enrich our understanding of family and ways of being. We have also delved deeply into developing approaches, actions, strategies and tools to implement effective partnerships whereby we can measure their success.Of critical importance is how we lead all these processes.The aim of this chapter is for you to identify when leadership approaches need to change in response to the positioning of partnership work and ensure a way forward for all parties.

This introductory chapter provides a brief introduction to the theme of the textbook: transformative classroom management. It outlines the rest of the chapters’ main themes and discussions, and establishes connection as the principal modern precept for managing the class and behaviour in educational environments.