As I am reaching the end of the Master of Education Program at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, I have been provided with numerous opportunities to reflect on my personal experience in music education in Canada. I have been a musician for most of my life – as I am getting more comfortable in my current role as a high school band teacher, I have been reflecting on how difficult it has been to obtain this role as a woman and how my leadership style has been criticized by male colleagues who dominate the profession (Bovin, 2019). Although the situation is improving, the stereotypical music director has a top-down approach and prioritizes music results over students’ needs (Shouldice, 2017). However, education in North America is evolving towards a student-centred approach to teaching in all subjects. In this paper, I reject the social construct of high school music directors and their requirement to have authoritative, topdown, transactional (traditionally masculine) leadership traits in order to be successful (i.e., get musical results). I argue that the most effective high school music directors have student-centred leadership traits more aligned with transformational (traditionally feminine) leadership. I consider myself to have the latter style of leadership and I have seen my students flourish both generally and as musicians. Regardless of criticism, I believe this is the best way to teach music – the application of this paper is based on my own teaching experiences in high school music education. The implication of this paper is that it would contribute to the scholarly conversation of the acceptance and successes of transformational leaders in music education. Further, all areas of music education would be inclusive and welcoming to all music educators, and students would be a part of learning communities based on genuine care.
