ABSTRACT Today's multilingual world is characterized by exploration, (de‐)colonization, migration, and (de‐)globalization, giving rise to English as a global lingua franca with perceived opportunities and social mobility. Under such conditions, this article advocates for curricula, pedagogies, and methodologies that value different languages more equally and recognizes cultural identities, creating sufficient space for underrepresented voices and perspectives, including those from the Global South and postcolonial contexts, especially those who often encounter barriers in language learning and struggle to access educational opportunities. It examines various strands of thought, including translanguaging, ecological perspectives, inclusive leadership, and the implications of AI for language education. These approaches have specific implications and can be integrated into multiple dimensions of educational development. Significantly, this paper aims to offer a framework that brings these strands together in ways that respond to current contexts, as captured in the proposed DETAIL approach, representing different core areas for action in shaping the future of leadership in language education; specifically, this approach includes distributed leadership and diversity, both an ecological and equity‐based approach, translanguaging and technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), inclusivity and integration, and linguistically diverse and lifelong learning. Elements of the DETAIL approach cannot be separated ontologically, connecting with and complementing each other. This proposed approach informs language education in ways that value linguistic diversity, mobilize technological innovation, and address the complexities of contemporary educational contexts.
Lee et al. (Fri,) studied this question.