Being at the Heart of the Matter: Culturally Relevant Leadership Learning, Emotions, and Storytelling

Grounded in feminist affective theory, the current article explores how emotions can be an effective tool for deploying the Culturally Relevant Leadership Learning (CRLL) model. The CRLL model proposes a reconceptualization of leadership education to challenge dominate norms and foster more inclusive and equitable leadership learning. Therefore, the author argues that “being” a culturally relevant leadership educator and learner consists of an embodied pedagogy in which storytelling can be employed to translate emotions into action and social change. The current article is framed using Marshall Ganz’s Public Narrative Model (i.e., Story of Self), thus constituting it as a theory‐in‐practice.