Although teacher leadership is an established feature of education reform, it was only 30 years ago that most of the school improvement literature focused on principals and superintendents. Although the idea of ​​teacher leadership is not new, the conception of this role has evolved considerably. The teacher has been considered an organizational leader since the one-room school of the 19th century. With the advent of professional school management in the 21st century, teacher leadership became an issue of democracy in the workplace. Critics of professional administration argued that schools could not teach democratic principles without operating democratically. Teacher involvement in policy formulation was thought to be an important part of democratic school leadership.

Efforts to promote teacher leadership were renewed in response to regulatory reforms. These initiatives saw teacher leadership as an instrument of school improvement that would facilitate problem solving by involving the people closest to the problems. The initiatives were also seen as a means of empowering individual teachers. Varying and expanding teachers’ responsibilities, including increased leadership with commensurate recognition and compensation, was assumed to increase motivation, satisfaction, and performance. Thinking about teacher leadership has moved away from this approach based on role-based individual empowerment, in part because the evidence on the effectiveness of such empowerment initiatives was equivocal. It was not always clear how teachers would perform in new leadership roles or how these roles related to student learning. The roles did little to improve schools, while causing stress and role conflict for many teachers. Furthermore, lessons learned from recent school improvement efforts have shown that improvement depends less on structural changes than on the development of knowledge, skills and commitment of teachers, who are more likely to change social organization and culture. of the schools.

Each of these approaches moves beyond the idea of ​​individual leadership in formal positions to more dynamic organizational views of leadership. Initial evidence indicates that these modes of teacher leadership are more conducive to school improvement than the previous ones. The approaches are also consistent with recent literature that defines leadership as a social process directed towards a collective goal. The first approach sees leadership in teachers’ efforts to develop new knowledge from inquiry in their schools and classrooms. Teacher research encompasses all forms of teacher inquiry that involve the systematic, intentional, and self-critical study of teaching. Proponents argue that teacher research provides useful knowledge for the broader educational community and challenges the dominance of university research. Furthermore, teacher researchers tend to increase their sense of promoting change and become more reflective, critical and analytical about their own teaching and the school practices around them. The literature that examines teacher research reports positive results. Teacher collaborations to identify, investigate, and address school issues have been effective. Teacher research groups have developed school programs and policies. According to teachers, their research experience enhances their ability to promote school change, although they do not necessarily see themselves as leaders in their leadership roles. Teacher research studies indicate that collaboration between administrators and teachers on research related to school improvement promotes a sense of individual and collective efficacy.

In the second approach, the distribution of leadership between roles influences school improvement. Caution in this approach shifts from individual roles to organizational tasks. Three related models of distributive leadership have recently emerged in the literature.

One model sees leadership as the performance of key functions (for example, providing vision and encouragement, obtaining resources, monitoring improvements, and handling internal and external disturbances) rather than the fulfillment of formal roles. From this point of view, it is more important that the job is done well than that it is done by a particular individual. A study of primary schools that introduced a new curriculum found that numerous people performed key functions, including administrators, teachers, and outside consultants. When people in different roles performed similar functions, the resulting complementary redundancy improved the effectiveness of the functions.

A second model describes leadership as a resource of power and influence throughout the organization that is produced through interaction. One study found that individuals in different roles influenced different organizational outcomes. For example, principals and teachers influenced organizational commitment, while parent leadership affected student attendance and achievement. Another study concluded that the total influence of leadership, as an indicator of the distribution of influence between roles, was positively related to the effectiveness of the school organization.

A third model, task-oriented, sees leadership as the interaction of school leaders, followers, and situations. Leadership encompasses the practice of two or more leaders in their interactions with followers. Followers not only influence the actions of leaders, but are also an essential constituent of the social interaction that is leadership activity. Furthermore, the situation determines and is determined by the leadership. Case studies show that leaders who work interdependently on tasks can contribute to effective performance more than any other leader. School leadership is enhanced by the knowledge, skills, and commitment that teachers bring. Teacher leadership adds value to administrative leadership in terms of influencing school improvement and student outcomes. Whether or not they hold formal leadership positions, teachers can exert influence simply by participating in the social relationships that make up school organizations.

The third approach emphasizes self-managed teams to promote collaboration, learning, and problem solving among teachers. These teams are often small task groups in which members have a common purpose, interdependent roles, and complementary skills. Schools can create teams to increase teacher responsibilities and expand opportunities for self-direction. Teacher teams can lead by promoting school improvement and exerting normative influence over members who shape the ideas and actions of others. This leadership can reduce the need for managerial control.

Research indicates that effective teams require contexts that support them through rewards, training, clear requirements, and the absence of restrictions. Teams also require strong internal leadership from teachers who have team experience and strong external leadership from administrators who enhance team members’ sense of efficacy and autonomy. With this support, teams can perform particular tasks while increasing work motivation and job satisfaction. Teamwork can reduce isolation and focus teachers’ work on student learning. Teachers in teams tend to address student issues earlier and are more proactive in changing classroom practice than colleagues who are not in teams. However, research has found that the effects of teams on whole-school improvement are less encouraging, in part because teams can experience serious problems coordinating activities and agreeing on strategic issues at the organizational level. While teams can promote rethinking and experimentation that can change practice, strong external leadership is needed to coordinate teamwork at the school level and avoid organizational fragmentation.

All three approaches emphasize the importance of collective leadership in developing school organization, curriculum, and instruction. School leadership must focus on important functions, not just people and positions, as the primary means of promoting school improvement. While we need to develop the capacity for collective leadership, principals remain crucial to teacher leadership as they are the ones who best know how to support and manage new forms of leadership. These new forms are likely to be effective only if supported in their broader organizational contexts. School contexts that resist teacher leadership by allowing little time for its realization must be changed.