Educational leadership in the US context has increasingly focused on how communities engage each other, and how leaders navigate and lead diverse communities in just and equitable ways. This paper draws on research from three geographically distinct regions within the US, highlighting insights drawn from these cases situated in different levels of the US educational system. Using communicative intelligence (citation) as an organizing concept, the authors discuss cases involving educational leaders, university faculty and immigrant elementary school parents to illustrate how ethics and values evident in the actions of participants in each situation, amid different and overlapping crises, inform the development of a framework for leading within crisis situations combining relational literacies outlined by the five capabilities and four abilities of communicative intelligence (Zoller, Lahera, & Normore, 2015) with evidence of leadership practices and values characterized by compassion, trust and emotional integrity (Solomon, 2005). The three cases include a) a US West Coast university’s PK-12 school leadership preparation program focused on leadership dispositions, behaviors, knowledge and skills that honor social justice, equity, and individual culture while providing a space to foster personal growth, agency and leadership capacity of aspiring leaders for community/education transformation; b) a university educational preparation community in an urban setting on the US East Coast, in which participants navigated the various issues surrounding the COVID19 lockdown; and c) an immigrant parent organization, affiliated with a midwestern urban elementary school, whose aim it was to advocate for themselves, their families and their school-age children amid anti-immigrant policies and climate. By drawing on components of communicative intelligence, the authors identify how leaders in each context, contending with various threats and crises, engage with each other and their constituents (e.g. students, teachers, parents, peers) in ways that privilege humanizing principles of compassion, trust and emotional integrity, while navigating changing and sometimes threatening policies. As such, the authors develop a framework for leadership praxis that cultivates cohesive and educative communities in diverse contexts.

Solomon, R. C. (2005). Emotional leadership, emotional integrity. In The quest for moral leaders. Edward Elgar Publishing. Zoller, K., Lahera, A., Normore, A. (2015). It ’s not just what you say. Journal of Staff Development. 36(5), 34-38.