This book describes a model of leadership drawn from the experience of women educational leaders. It examines the qualities that women bring to leadership roles and shows how these can be used to improve the practice and teaching of educational leadership for men and women. Using 11 case studies, the book describes how women conceptualize leadership and practice it in their roles as educational leaders. The double helix is used as a metaphor to identify and explore the essence of leadership grounded in women's experience and to develop the concept of "relational leadership." The new model integrates both traditional and relational leadership practices to create a more comprehensive, responsive repertory of skills for all leaders. Following the foreword and preface, chapter 1 introduces the six ideas that have led to the writing of the book. Chapter 2 describes two metaphors of culture undergirding the assertion that the experience of women as school leaders has value and should be disseminated to all school leaders. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the feminist attributes of leadership and analyze the practice of school leaders using the framework of the feminist attributes of collaboration, caring, courage, intuition, and vision. The fifth chapter describes the process of constructing knowledge from women's experience and the development of the Northeast Coalition of Educational Leaders (NECEL). Chapter 6 places the concepts into a historical perspective. The seventh chapter looks at some of the possibilities for change initiated by both men and women through the application and practice of relationship leadership in schools. An index and two figures are included. (Contains 70 references.) (LMI)