This article reports on a research project (the Educative Leadership Project) which brought together theorists and exemplary practitioners within a critically collaborative research framework to generate a "practical" theory of leadership in educational settings. A major assumption of the project directors was that theory about educational leadership could be derived from a combination of theoretical knowledge of specialist theorists and practical wisdom, derived, primarily, from the experience of exemplary practitioners. The research process of the project is described and analyzed. The research findings are presented in the form of a tentative theory of educative leadership. Some implications for practice are also highlighted

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'The wisest approach to leadership in education' is to be 'educative in intent and outcome'; from this precept a joint in-service training and postgraduate materials production programme is developed. It is shaped by an approach to organisations as cultures, involving negotiation about what is real and what is right.

This article draws on the theory and the methodology of recently completed research in an attempt to encourage departures from observational studies in the Mintzberg style. It argues for another approach to the interpretation of action: for one that begins with the existential meanings of an adminstrator and is cognizant over time of how the administrator's changing relationship with his or her position and context is in turn relative to (and embedded in) wider "host"structures. In short, an existential and ethnographic approach is advocated in understanding what is termed the being and becoming of an educational administrator.