This article argues that an educational organization's type of leadership will to a very large extent determine the quality of personal transformation it instigates among its stakeholders. Focusing on the importance of transformative leadership, such leadership will be viewed as a critical and collaborative process in which school-based action research and situational knowledge creation contribute significantly to organizational decision-making. A protocol for deliberative decision-making is presented to elucidate how this dynamic may be implemented in practical terms. This five-step process entails: (1) the evaluation of current practice; (2) deliberation on how to improve; (3) the drafting of a development plan; (4) dialogue with all stakeholders; and (5) the decision-making. It is argued that this process is the best guarantee that those involved in the organization will value and see the need for the changes ahead and, in the meantime, enables them to claim part of the ownership of the change process.