This paper takes issue with the popular view comparing educational leadership with industrial management, suggesting that educational leaders today must go beyond the fine tuning and monitoring of existing instructional programs; instead, the primary task of educational leadership during the rest of the century will be nothing less than social reconstruction. This task calls for the following leadership requirements: (1) more leadership demonstrated through technical competence in teaching, learning, and curriculum; (2) more leadership with clarity of purpose and commitment to ideals for a better society; and (3) more leadership with deep and rooted attachments to the traditional values of public education. After a brief discussion of each of these requirements, the summary states that leaders must resist the growing clamor of reactionaries--often posing as reformers--who would centralize, homogenize, and take control of public education, parents, and students alike. (TE)