Frost y Harris CJE - 03 Teacher Leadership - Towards A Research Agenda

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Teacher Leadership: towards a research agenda

David Frost ;Alma Harris
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Cambridge Journal of Education
Vol. 33, No. 3, November 2003
Teacher Leadership: towards a

research agenda
DAVID FROST
University of Cambridge, UK
ALMA HARRIS
Warwick University, UK
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ABSTRACT This article explores the emerging discourse about teacher leadership in the UK. It
draws upon the international literature in exploring a classification of forms of teacher leadership
and discusses issues concerned with the policy context. It considers some theoretical perspectives
on distributed leadership before going on to examine in detail a possible framework of factors
affecting teachers’ capacity to exercise leadership. Finally it puts forward a proposal for research.
INTRODUCTION
‘Teacher leadership: its time has come’ proclaimed a landmark American text
(Katzenmeyer & Moller, 1996, p. 3). The slogan denotes a sense of being on the
cusp of a new era of teacher professionalism which is echoed in a number of
countries: for example in Australia in ‘Developing Teacher Leaders’ (Crowther
et al., 2002) and in the UK in ‘Teacher-led School Improvement’ (Frost et al.,
2000). Even in Italy, where the discourse in school leadership is arguably in its
infancy, the development of the role of ‘funzione obiettivo’ signals a move
towards teacher leadership (see Brotto, 2003). All of these texts have drawn
support and inspiration from a substantial body of work in the late 1980s and
90s focussing on educational reform and teacher professionalism (see, for
example, Lieberman, 1988; Fullan, 1993; Hargreaves & Evans, 1997). Perhaps
it is time to ask what is distinctive about the idea of teacher leadership and to
explore competing conceptions.
At the time of writing it is clear that the discourse about school leadership
is shifting towards the notion of shared or distributed leadership. Recent
assessments suggest that enabling others to exercise leadership is an essential
dimension of ‘capacity building’ in which the emphasis shifts from creating and
managing structures as means of control, to a view of structure as the means to
build the cultures that nourish learning and achievement at all levels in the
organisation (Earl & Lee, 2000; Harris & Lambert, 2003; Jackson, 2000). In
contrast to traditional notions of leadership, distributed leadership emphasises
ISSN 0305-764X print; ISSN 1469-3577 online/03/030479-20  2003 University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
DOI: 10.1080/0305764032000122078
480 D. Frost & A. Harris
collective responsibility and collaborative working. Central to the idea of dis-

tributed leadership is the view that leadership is not the sole preserve of the
individual at the top, but that it may be exercised by anybody within the
organisation. Distributed leadership places an emphasis upon maximising intel-
lectual and social capital (Hargreaves, 2001) and building capacity within the
organisation. It implies that all teachers have the potential to contribute to
leading organisational development and change.
Distributed leadership is an emergent dimension of the official discourse in
the UK. This is particularly evident in the material produced by the National
College for School Leadership to promote its Networked Learning Communi-
ties programme (www.ncsl.org.uk/nlc). The NCSL’s Director of Research re-
cently acknowledged this.
The long standing belief in the power of one is being challenged.

Today there is much more talk about shared leadership, leadership

teams and distributed leadership. (Southworth, 2002a)
Southworth’s piece is cautious rather than embracing; it poses questions about

how the distribution of power is to be handled and what exactly is to be
distributed. Similarly, the literature review on distributed leadership commis-
sioned by the NCSL identifies questions about meaning and practice (Bennett,
et al., 2003). There is a clear implication that research is needed as a matter of
some urgency.
WHAT IS MEANT BY ‘TEACHER LEADERSHIP’?

The terms ‘teacher leaders’ and ‘teacher leadership’ appear in the literature in
a variety of contexts (see Harris & Muijs, 2002, for a review). Katzenmeyer and
Moller, for example, define it in the following way:
Teachers who are leaders lead within and beyond the classroom,
identify with and contribute to a community of teacher learners and
leaders, and influence others towards improved educational practice.
(Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 5)
Note however that they begin with ‘teachers who are leaders’ which suggests
that certain teachers are selected to undertake designated leadership roles; this
is only one of a number of possible interpretations of the idea of course. At this
stage a rough-hewn typology may be suggested. In some cases a specific ‘teacher
leader’ role is assumed; in others the expectation is that teachers who already
occupy a formal management position (middle managers) will be the ones to
exercise leadership. A further category is one which includes a range of distinct
professional development and research roles. A fourth category is simply leader-
ship exercised by teachers regardless of position or designation. We discuss each
of these categories in outline below.
Towards a Research Agenda 481
Lead Teachers
This refers to teachers who have been appointed to ‘teacher leader’ roles for
specific purposes. In both the USA and UK national reform initiatives have
increasingly focused on ‘the classroom level’ which has led, for example, to the
appointment of experienced practitioners to posts dedicated to improving
colleagues’ performance. The work of these external change agents or ‘master
teachers’ might include organisational diagnosis and building collaborative
relationships in schools (Little, 1988). The term ‘lead teachers’ is also used to
describe a form of coaching which involves classroom observation. Little talks of
‘school-level instructional leadership teams’ where the ‘lead teachers’ still retain
a 60% teaching commitment but the rest of the time is spent observing teaching
and giving feedback to teachers. For Lieberman et al. (1988) the role of the
‘teacher leader’ is part of ‘the second wave of school reform’ which implies a
thrust from the outside in. More recently in England, a large number of expert
classroom practitioners have been recruited by LEAs to act as ‘Teaching and
Learning Consultants’ with a specific brief to implement the Key Stage 3
Strategy (DfES, 2002). The ‘Advanced Skills Teacher’ (AST) designation is
another DFES scheme in which schools can appoint or designate expert
practitioners who then act as consultants for a proportion of their time. This
development echoes the extensive appointment by LEAs of ‘advisory teachers’
or what, in the 1980s, Biott and colleagues called ‘semi-detached teachers’
(Biott, 1991). One of the contributors to Biott’s book described himself as a
‘support teacher’ and associated himself with the American literature on teacher
leadership about which he said: ‘I interpret this to mean a teacher whose first
concern is to care about other teachers and their teaching’ (Atkinson, 1991,
p. 56).
Middle Managers
It is increasingly the case in the UK that Heads of Departments, Subject
Leaders, Subject Coordinators and to some extent Pastoral Year Heads are
expected to exercise leadership. In 1998 the Teacher Training Agency issued a
set of standards for subject leaders which included ‘the strategic direction and
development of the subject’, ‘monitoring and evaluation of teaching’, ‘leading
and managing staff’ and ‘the deployment of staff and resources’. The wording
of these standards allowed for a range of interpretations, but the overall effect
was to confirm the traditional hierarchical view of school leadership. Schools in
Britain tend to be seen as particularly hierarchical and bureaucratic from the
vantage point of countries in which schools are organised along entirely different
lines (MacBeath et al., 2003). It is built on a set of Weberian assumptions about
the links between authority and the structure of management roles within
organisations (Katz & Kahn, 1966). In an era of national reform driven from the
centre it is perhaps not surprising that there has been a strong focus in
inspection reports on the need to develop middle managers. There is also
research evidence that highlights the contribution that middle management

makes to school improvement (Busher & Harris, 2001). Having established
training programmes for headteachers, the National College for School Leader-
ship is focusing on the ‘Leading from the Middle’ programme as a systematic
response to that need. Not all middle managers accept the challenge of
leadership however, and there is evidence that both Headteachers and teachers
sometimes question the legitimacy of this expectation (Little, 1988).
Co-ordinators and Representatives

This category includes teachers who have been designated as mentors, co-
ordinators of continuing professional development (Wasley, 1991; Sherrill,
1999), Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) and facilitators of
action research. There are a variety of roles in which teachers are called upon
to support the professional learning of their colleagues. These include the
induction and mentoring of teachers new to the school or the co-ordination of
continuing professional development activities. In a minority of schools in the
England there are teachers who are designated as ‘research co-ordinator’, a role
aimed at facilitating action research. A recent initiative by the National College
for School Leadership—the Networked Learning Communities initiative
(NCSL, 2001)—builds on the work of the TTA funded research consortia
which has led to the development not only of research capacity in the participat-
ing schools, but also to the development of the role of ‘school research
co-ordinator’. There are questions however, about the extent to which teachers
may be reluctant to become involved in data-gathering activities in each others’
classrooms, seen by some as intrusive and too closely allied with inspection and
performance management (Cordingley et al., 2002).
In some parts of north America, teacher union representatives exercise a
significant leadership role. This has been referred to as ‘invisible leadership’
(Bascia, 1997) perhaps because these teacher leaders had not been appointed by
the school principal, but nonetheless exercise a great deal of influence.
Teachers’ Leadership
This refers to the exercise of leadership by teachers regardless of position or
designation. Teachers may become involved in leadership activity through their
membership of a working party or a school improvement group (SIG). This may
be simply the school’s own initiative or it may be that the school is participating
in a project or partnership arrangement established to support development
work. For example, in a number of schools in the south-east of England, teacher
leadership is supported through membership of school-based development
groups co-ordinated by a senior member of the school’s staff working in
collaboration with a university tutor. The teachers present evidence of their
‘leadership of learning centred development work’ to achieve a masters degree.
The approach is distinctive in that it emphasises the capacity of all teachers to

engage in ‘teacher-led development work’ (Frost & Durrant, 2002a). For them:
It is not a matter of delegation, direction or distribution of responsi-

bility, but rather a matter of teachers’ agency and their choice in
initiating and sustaining change … Negotiation of personal develop-
ment plans with colleagues ensures that they are appropriate and
realistic and that the development work is likely to be supported.
Systematic inquiry and classroom experimentation are key elements of
the development process, evidence being used strategically to improve
learning and teaching and to build capacity through collaborative
development work. (Frost & Durrant, 2003, p. 3)
Another example is the IQEA (Improving the Quality of Education for All)
project in which the school invites a number of teachers, including both senior
and junior members of staff, to form a ‘cadre group’ to support a range of school
improvement initiatives (Hopkins, 2002). A similar model has recently been
adopted by the ‘Octet project’—a framework of support provided directly by the
DfES for ‘schools facing exceptionally challenging circumstances’. Within the
project schools it would not be unusual, for example, for SIG members who
have only been teaching for a two or three years to be leading a strand of
development work. Early evidence from the evaluation of this initiative suggests
that SIG members, particularly those with minimal experience and no formal
position, struggle with the issue of legitimacy because of their uncertain status
in the school (Cullen, 2003). It may be argued that this category ought properly
to be labelled ‘informal leadership’.
Teachers exercise informal leadership … by sharing their expertise,

volunteering for new projects and bringing new ideas to the school …
by helping their colleagues to carry out their classroom duties, and by
assisting in the improvement of classroom practice through the engage-
ment of their colleagues in experimentation and the examination of
more powerful instructional techniques. Teachers attribute leadership
qualities, as well, to colleagues who accept responsibility for their own
professional growth, promote the school’s mission, and work for the
improvement of the school or school system. (Leithwood et al., 199,
p. 117)
The use of the term informal in this context could be taken to mean simply the
absence of a formal position, but it is important to preserve the distinction
between activity that might be described as leadership by others, and activity
that is planned and exercised deliberately by teachers. The defining character-
istic is that the teacher has chosen to act strategically to contribute to school
improvement (Frost & Durrant, 2002a).
THE QUESTION OF THE POLICY CONTEXT
The development of teacher leadership is linked to the wider context of the

national reform movements of the past fifteen years or so. For example, the
introduction of a national curriculum in the UK led to a focus on subject
leadership in both secondary and primary schools. More recently, the ‘Key
Stage 3 Strategy’ has prompted the appointment of consultants and lead
teachers funded by central government. A quite different context in the USA is
the National Writing Project, a network which has grown from the bottom up
and has been a major catalyst for the development of teacher leadership
(Lieberman & Wood, 2003). Clearly the differences in the way teacher leader-
ship is constructed depends to some extent on the policy context. There is some
concern that constructions of teacher leadership linked to the standard driven
national reforms may rely too heavily on the ideology of what the Americans call
‘instructional leadership’, which is a top-down way of thinking about improving

teaching and learning (Frost, 2003; Day et al., 2001). This issue is particularly
crucial in the UK where we have a national institution (NCSL) dedicated to the
orchestration of the school leadership discourse. The emergence of a restrictive
orthodoxy is a real possibility.
The concept of ‘instructional leadership’ is a fairly recent addition to the
school leadership debate in the UK, but it is well established in the USA.
According to Hallinger (elsewhere in this volume) it was widely adopted as ‘the
model of choice’ in principal leadership academies. The practice of instructional
leadership includes: defining the mission, managing curriculum and instruction,
supervising teaching, monitoring student progress and promoting instructional
climate (Krug, 1992; Blasé & Blasé, 1998; Hallinger & Murphy, 1985). This
definition portrays teacher leadership as the missing link in the chain of
command and control. For MacBeath (2003) ‘the concept implies overseeing,
monitoring and evaluation of teaching by senior managers and contains the
seeds of appraisal and performance management’.
This way of thinking about teacher leadership seems to be increasingly
influential in England; it is perhaps not insignificant that David Hopkins’
enthusiastic account of instructional leadership was published in the same year
that he became Chair of the Standards and Effectiveness Unit (Hopkins, 2001);
similarly, Geoff Southworth’s article, ‘Instructional Leadership in Schools:
reflections and empirical evidence’, was published in the same year that he
became Director of Research at the National College for School Leadership
(Southworth, 2002b). The concept of instructional leadership may well be seen
to be pivotal in raising standards, but it has to be recognised that it is in tension
with the parallel global discourse of ‘reprofessionalisation’ (Hargreaves, 1997;
McLaughlin, 1997) and the advocacy of ‘learning communities’ (Mitchell &
Sackney, 2000).
It is clear then that, not only are there alternative interpretations and
competing positions on the nature of teacher leadership, but also that these are
shaped by wider policy contexts and agendas about teacher performance and the
very nature of teacher professionalism. Consequently, in any research endeavour

in this field there is a pressing need to address issues of definition and
delineation in concert with an analysis of policy contexts.
THE NATURE OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

A discussion of teacher leadership must be underpinned by a sound theoretical
foundation which centres on the nature of leadership and the question of what
is distinctive about educational leadership. This question is at the heart of a
current project ‘Leadership for Learning: the Carpe Vitam project’ (MacBeath
et al., 2003). The mainstream literature on leadership tends to bypass such
fundamental questions, concentrating instead on leadership traits or leadership
styles (Bryman, 1996), but arguably any empirical research on teacher leader-
ship needs to be informed by an understanding of leadership per se which in
turn needs to be applied to the organisational context of schools.

There seems to be a reasonable consensus in the literature that although
leadership is a slippery concept it can nevertheless be reduced to the business of
influencing (Leithwood et al., 1999). Leithwood and his colleagues cite Yukl
(1994), a major source in organisational studies, in support of this:
Most definitions of leadership reflect the assumption that it involves a
social influence process whereby intentional influence is exerted by one
person (or group) over other people (or groups) to structure activities
and relationships in a group or organisation. (Yukl, 1994, p. 3)
It has been argued elsewhere that leadership is simply a fundamental dimension
of what it is to be human; all human beings have vision—the capacity to
envisage a better or more just world—and all of us have agency—the capacity to
make a difference to that world (Frost, 2003). This is at odds with the common
sense view of leadership which is summed up well by Peter Senge who said that
traditionally we see leaders as ‘special people who set the direction, make the
key decisions, and energize the troops’ (1990, p. 340). The problem with this is
that such myths lead to a view of leadership which necessarily entails:
Assumptions of people’s powerlessness, their lack of personal vision
and inability to master the forces of change, deficits that can be
remedied only be a few great leaders. (Senge, 1990, p. 340)
Attempts to define teacher leadership seem most commonly to centre on
discussions about who can exert influence over colleagues and in what domains.
Again Leithwood et al. are helpful in suggesting that leadership does not take on
new meaning just because the word ‘teacher’ is put at the front of it. For them:
It entails the exercise of influence over the beliefs, actions and values
of others … as is the case with leadership from any source.
(Leithwood et al., 1999, p. 116, after Sirotnik & Kimball, 1996)
Research on teacher leadership therefore must also be concerned not only with
the nature of leadership, but also with the question of the distribution of
leadership within an organisation.
DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVE-

NESS
The traditional view of the leader as the strong, charismatic and preferably heroic
individual at the apex of the organisation rests on a structuralist organisational
science (Ball, 1987). Arguably, the main flaw with structuralist ways of analysing
organisational life is the tendency to deny the importance of human agency. Put
simply, this leads either to an acceptance of hierarchical forms of organisation
or, from a Marxist perspective, to a sense of helplessness in which organisational
structures inevitably reflect a stratified society which is constantly reproduced by
the forms of its institutions.
With structuration theory, Giddens provided relief from this straitjacket. In

his theory of action, social or organisational structures can be modified by the
agency of individuals who use whatever power resources are to hand (Giddens,
1984). His argument is that it is not a matter of being free of the control exerted
by structures, but rather that as agents we can exert transformative power over
those structures. In organisational theory this has been used to support a more
sophisticated approach to leadership which recognises the reality of the human
response to organisational arrangements (see Jaffee, 2001). The implication
being that there is scope for the initiation of change by those who may otherwise
feel at the mercy of the organisational arrangements of the school.
Gronn’s position on distributed forms of leadership is particularly helpful in
providing a theoretical base for teacher leadership. He puts forward a theory of
action based on the idea of conjoint agency, drawing on Engeström’s activity
theory (1999) in which the notion of activity bridges the gap between agency and
structure. In activity theory, leadership is more of a collective phenomenon. As
Gronn puts it:
… the potential for leadership is present in the flow of activities in which
a set of organisation members find themselves enmeshed. (Gronn,
2000, p. 331)
Explanations based on activity theory are particularly applicable to professional
contexts such as schools because most conceptions of professionalism include the
idea of autonomous judgement. Again Gronn (2000) is helpful when he says that:
In activities in which there is greater scope for discretion, examples of
reciprocally expressed influence abound. In the relations between
organisational heads and their immediate subordinates or between
executives and their personal assistants for example, couplings form in
which the extent of the conjoint agency resulting from the interdepen-
dence and mutual influence of the two parties is sufficient to render
meaningless any assumptions about leadership being embodied in just
one individual. (Gronn, 2000, p. 331)
Research suggests that effective schools are ones which have achieved a high
level of consistency in practice and coherence in values (Sammons et al., 1995).
Some have interpreted this as a call for firm leadership from headteachers and
the imposition of ‘the vision’ from the top down. An alternative interpretation
is to see coherence as a product of critical discourse in which teachers articulate
their ideas and perceptions and move to a deeper shared understanding. This
suggests the engagement of teachers in processes of decision making and
development activity (Harris & Lambert, 2003).
The view of leadership as resulting from conjoint agency and as a property
of activity resonates well with the notion of distributed leadership. Sergiovanni’s
concept of leadership density (2001) is also pertinent here. He argues that high
leadership density means that a larger number of people are involved in the work
of others, are trusted with information, are involved in decision making, are
exposed to new ideas and participate in knowledge creation and transfer. In
such a situation, a larger number of members of the organisation have a stake

in the success of the school.
Arguments for distributed leadership imply a different power relationship
within the school where the distinctions between followers and leaders becomes
blurred. It also opens up the possibility for all teachers to become leaders in
various ways, to a variable extent and at various times.
KEY FACTORS IN THE ANALYSIS OF TEACHER LEADERSHIP

An analysis of the policy context of school leadership together with a
clarification of theoretical perspectives on distributed leadership provide a sound
basis for research on teacher leadership. However, equally important is the need
to clarify the factors that determine the extent and nature of leadership that can
be exercised by teachers. Set out below therefore is a consideration of the factors
that might underpin further empirical work in this area. The factors are
organised under three headings:
• The construction of the professional role of teachers.
• The organisational environment.
• Personal capacity.
Construction of the Professional Role of Teachers

The extent to which teachers are able to exercise leadership will be affected to
some extent by the way they construct their professional role, what they perceive
the role boundaries to be, and what they see as being contained within those
boundaries. It will also be affected by the way it is constructed by others; by
their colleagues in school, by norms within the wider professional community
and throughout society as whole. So we might say that the scope for the exercise
of leadership on the part of teachers is shaped by what Gronn refers to as the
‘dynamic interplay of the role perceptions and expectations’ of members of the
role set (Gronn, 2003, p. 35, after Fondas & Stewart, 1994). Headteachers’
perceptions and expectations will play a major part in the construction of the
professional role of teachers. They have the advantage of their formal position
enabling them to initiate the development of the structures and processes that
shape the expectations of all members of the school staff. This raises the
question of the legitimacy of teachers’ exercise of leadership, particularly where
the teacher does not occupy a formal leadership position.
Constructions of the role of the teacher are also shaped by beliefs in society
as a whole. The idea of the teacher as a leader may not be part of the current
popular conception although this may have been disturbed, if not yet recast, by
recent policy initiatives in the UK which encourage the more widespread use of
LSAs (learning support assistants). Such a move requires teachers to see
themselves less as solitary practitioners and more as team leaders and orchestra-
tors of the work of others.
More recently a plea for ‘the activist teaching profession’ has been ad-
vanced by Judyth Sachs; the building blocks of her argument include Fullan’s
ideas about the moral purpose of teaching, Hargreaves and Goodson’s dis-
cussion of professionalism in a post-modern age (1996) and work in Australia
focussing on ‘democratic professionalism’ (Sachs, 2003).
The debate about teacher professionalism has a long history. In his seminal
1975 book about curriculum development, Lawrence Stenhouse engaged with
Eric Hoyle’s work on the idea of the ‘restricted and extended professional’
(Stenhouse, 1975). Stenhouse argued that the teacher’s role should encompass
a commitment to study one’s own teaching and test pedagogical theories in
practice. Twenty five years after Stenhouse, John Quicke argues for a collabora-
tive culture of professionalism based on the idea of situated rather than absolute
professional knowledge (Quicke, 2000). Similarly, there are sonorous American
voices that have been arguing for a revitalization of teacher professionalism
based on the idea of ‘transformative professionalism’ (see McLaughlin, 1997).
Clearly any meaningful research on teacher leadership would need to
investigate constructions of teacher professionalism within the context of per-
ceptions of the professional role of the teacher in society and within educational
policy.
The Organisational Environment

The extent to which teachers are able to exercise leadership will also be shaped
by organisational factors. Any research in this area therefore would need to
examine the organisational environment of a given school, and the part this
plays in shaping the values and expectations which in turn shape constructions
of the professional role of the teacher. This focuses on what has been referred
to as ‘organisational capacity’ (Mitchell & Sackney, 2000) or what David
Hargreaves calls ‘organisational capital’ (Hargreaves, 2003). The organisational
environment of teacher leadership is concerned with much more than the
establishment of expectations however. There are three dimensions of the
organisational environment that could be said to impinge upon the exercise of
leadership on the part of teachers and these would need to be examined within
our proposed research. They are: organisational structures, organisational cul-
ture and social capital.
Organisational Structures
Perhaps the most obvious kind of structure within a school is its ‘management
arrangements’ (see Hargreaves & Hopkins, 1991), the system of roles, responsi-
bilities, opportunities for decision making and accountability. These arrange-
ments clearly affect the extent to which teachers can exercise leadership and
generate expectations which in turn affect the question of legitimacy. The
management arrangements crucially determine the spaces within which voices
can be heard and decisions made. They establish the patterns of accountability
and communication which constitute the political infrastructure of the organis-
ation. Headteachers, particularly when new to a post, will tend to see the
implementation of new structures as a key part of their strategic thrust, but
teachers can also bring about structural changes (Frost & Durrant, 2002b).
Wherever the levers are to be found, it is clear that an empirical investigation
would need to include an examination of the ways in which teachers’ leadership
is facilitated by management structures and the ways in which such structures
are affected by teachers’ strategic interventions.
Organisational Culture
Schein (1986) makes the rather extravagant claim that ‘the only thing of real
importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture’ (see for example
Leithwood et al., 1999, p. 82). The culture of an organisation is certainly
fundamental. It is the system of values, beliefs and normal ways of behaving
which underpins practice within the organisation. If, as Sergiovanni (2003, p.
14) says, it is ‘the normative glue that holds a particular school together’, this
obviously has to be taken into account in examining teachers’ leadership in any
given school. In particular, research would need to focus on the relationship
between the school’s organisational culture and the extent to which teachers feel
that the exercise of leadership is accepted, and legitimate. It would also need to
explore the impact that the culture has on the structures and processes that
allow such leadership to take place.
Social Capital
According to David Hargreaves:
Social capital consists of the degree of trust that exists between the
members and stakeholders; structurally, social capital is reflected in the
extent and quality of the networks between its members and its
external partners. (Hargreaves, 2003, p. 5)
The word trust is key here since it highlights the question of whether colleagues
in a school can allow each other to exercise leadership; whether they see the idea
of influencing each other as legitimate and acceptable. Sachs (2003) draws on
Giddens’ analysis in arguing for an environment in which ‘active trust’ can
flourish.
Trust in others generates solidarity … the other is someone on whom
one can rely, that reliance becoming mutual obligation … When
founded on active trust, obligation implies reciprocity. Obligations are
binding because they are mutual, and this is what gives them their
authority. (Giddens, 1994, p. 127)
Thus trust could be said to be a crucial element of social capital which is clearly
necessary for the successful development of teacher leadership.
Personal Capacity
A third category of factors that shape the extent to which teachers are able to
exercise leadership can be grouped under the heading of ‘personal capacity’. As
indicated earlier, research in this area must inevitably free itself from the
limitations of the idea of the single charismatic leader and embrace instead
notions of distributed leadership, but there is nevertheless the issue of the
capacity of the individual to exercise leadership and the extent to which this can
be cultivated and supported. There are a number of factors concerned with the
resources and abilities that individual teachers may possess. The general cate-
gory of ‘personal capacity’ can be examined in terms of authority, knowledge,
situational understanding and interpersonal skills.
Authority
The question of legitimacy and acceptability of teacher leadership has already
been mentioned (see page?). The sources of authority that teachers are able to
draw on when exercising leadership is therefore of crucial importance. The
traditional hierarchical model of organisation assumes a fixed connection be-
tween the position in the hierarchy and the authority possessed. This view can
be traced back to Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy in which rational-legal
authority is based on rational principles and the goal of organisational efficiency
(Jaffee, 2001). However, even Weber himself recognised the shortcomings of
bureaucracy in the way it can stifle creativity and autonomy. The ‘jobsworth’
scenario is an only too familiar limitation of a segmented approach to responsi-
bility within an organisation (Hecksher, 1994). However, authority can be
derived from other sources: Sergiovanni has explored different sources of
authority for leadership including: technical-rational, professional and moral
authority (Sergiovanni, 1992).
Technical-rational authority is increasingly important as the evidence-based
practice discourse gathers momentum and evidence grows in support of the view
that this is a powerful source of authority for teacher leadership (Frost et al.,
2003; Holden, 2002). Carefully prepared proposals based on good data gath-
ered within a well managed, collaborative process of change can often have far
more impact than the urgings from the Head of Department or a member of the
‘senior leadership team’. Professional authority based on ‘informed craft knowl-
edge and personal expertise’ is powerful in that teachers seem prepared to trust
the practitioner with a reputation for excellence in the classroom. Sergiovanni’s
‘moral authority’ is characterised as:
Felt obligation and duties derived from widely shared community
values, ideas and ideals. (Sergiovanni, 1992, p. 39)
It could be argued therefore that, if leadership density is maximised and if
teacher leadership flourishes, a climate would exist that would favour teacher
leadership based on moral authority, and we would be justified in using the term
‘learning community’ to describe it. So, research on teacher leadership would
need to explore the sources of authority that teachers can draw upon and how
this relates to the organisational environment in which they work.
Knowledge
The extent to which teachers can exercise leadership and the way they do this
is also affected by the value of their personal knowledge. A great deal of what
teachers know may be characterised as tacit knowledge (Polyani, 1983). While
this may support good classroom practice and provide the teacher with some
authority, pedagogical knowledge that is more articulated and publicly demon-
strable is an important component of the teacher’s strategic toolkit. We can no
longer assume that pedagogical knowledge is the private preserve of individual
teachers; they now operate in a climate where they must work with other
interests. The government for example, may want to promote particular beliefs
and practices; pupils have immense experience of so many classrooms and have
insights to offer; parents have experience, insights and beliefs about teaching
and learning. It is hardly surprising then that schools are increasingly expected
and indeed inclined to engage with these interests. Similarly, teachers who know
how their organisation is built and how it works have the strategic advantage.
Those with good organisational knowledge are able to intervene at the right time
and in the right place whether that be a powerful committee or simply an
informal but influential conversation. A third dimension is community knowledge:
not quite so obvious as the other two perhaps, but nonetheless important.
Teachers who have good knowledge of local interest groups, sources of expertise
and support, patterns of friendship, kinship, ethnic and religious affiliation and
the local economy are better able to engage in developmental activities that
influence practice.
Situational Understanding
Another important aspect of the personal capacity that makes a real difference
to the extent to which teachers are able to exercise leadership is situational
understanding. This is closely related to knowledge but it is nevertheless distinct.

The idea of ‘situated knowledge’ appears in the literature on initial teacher
education (see Calderhead, 1988) and is usually represented as an item in some
kind of taxonomy such as Shulman’s ‘categories of the knowledge base’ for
teaching (1987). In his list, ‘knowledge of educational contexts’ is equivalent to
situated knowledge. However, there is a difficulty in that the exercise of
leadership demands an ability to read situations rather than being in possession
of a body of knowledge which can explain all situations. Perhaps more useful is
the hermeneutic perspective which focuses on the accrescent nature of the
development of situational understanding. Pursuant to this view, Elliott (1993)
looks at situational understanding as one of the competences that distinguish
novice teachers from those who have acquired the wisdom of experience.
Arguably a key dimension of situational understanding is what Goleman
calls ‘emotional intelligence’ (1996), the relevance here being that teachers who
want to have influence need to be able to read situations which requires a

sensitivity to the emotional responses of others. This is a theme that has been
picked up by others, most notably Fullan (2001).
A further dimension is what has been termed ‘micro-political literacy’
(Penny, 2000, p. 333). Experienced strategists such as headteachers are used to
working within a ‘micro-political’ environment (Hoyle, 1982, 1986; Ball 1987).
They become aware of the minefield of ‘baronial politics’, the pattern of vested
interest, and the various power bases that have to be negotiated if change is to
be successfully managed. The capacity to act strategically to influence others
therefore could be said to rely on micro-political literacy. Penny’s study focused
on the degree to which teachers other than the headteacher have micro-political
literacy and are thus able to exercise influence within the organisation of their
school.
Interpersonal Skills
Finally, this fourth sub-division of the category of ‘personal capacity’ plays an
important part in determining the likelihood of success when teachers set out to
have influence in their schools. It is perhaps something of a cliché to say that
good leadership depends on good interpersonal skills. A focus on distributed
leadership calls into question assumptions about charismatic leadership; never-
theless it is clear that teachers’ interpersonal skills will affect the degree to which
they are able to influence each other. Any empirical investigation would be
inadequate if it ignored this key variable, but what may be most interesting is the
extent to which teachers experience a growth in their ‘influencing skills’ in
schools where teacher leadership is facilitated and scaffolded. Goleman has
developed his work on emotional intelligence (see above) to include the idea of
‘domains of personal and social competence (1998) and instruments designed to
measure what they call EQ or emotional quotient have been developed (see also
Stein & Book, 2000).
So, to summarise the argument: the extent to which teachers can exercise
leadership depends on a range of factors which are outlined in figure 1,

below.
FIG. 1. Factors shaping teacher leadership
These factors could constitute the framework for an empirical investigation of

teacher leadership in the UK.
A RESEARCH PROPOSAL
In this article, we have sketched out different categories of teacher leadership,
and explored the part it can play in school improvement and the development
of organisational effectiveness. We have also considered the factors that would
need to be investigated empirically. We now propose that these dimensions
taken together should form the foundation of a research project that would
illuminate the practice of teacher leadership in the UK and identify ways in
which it might be developed. The proposed research would focus on the UK
context, but draw upon the literature to examine a range of manifestations of
this in other countries, especially in Australia and North America. A provisional
set of broad aims are set out in figure 2, overleaf.
In general terms, the proposed research will seek to avoid the shortcomings
of a great deal of past educational research which has been accused of being
non-cumulative in nature and designed in such a way that both participants and
users do not derive immediate benefit (Hargreaves, 1996).
In order to ensure that the research is cumulative, it will build on and be
linked to a number of key projects: these include the review of literature
FIG. 2. Research aims.
conducted by Harris and Muijs (2002) and the current case studies of teacher
leadership commissioned jointly by the NUT and GTC; a study of distributed
leadership currently undertaken by John MacBeath for the National College of
School Leadership; the Leadership for Learning (Carpe Vitam) project
(MacBeath et al., 2003) and a series of small scale action research projects
focussed on teacher-led development work (Frost & Durrant, 2003).
In order to ensure usefulness to those participating in it, the proposed
research will have a strong development dimension. This will involve working
with schools and teachers in a developmental capacity, employing models of
critical friendship and self-evaluation in order to provide immediate support for
teacher leadership. In order to be of maximum benefit to users, the research will
aim to produce and disseminate case studies and practical materials that can be
used to support teacher leadership in addition to the usual recommendations to
policy makers.
CONCLUSION
The concept of teacher leadership is powerful because of its potential to
contribute directly to the improvement of school effectiveness. It is also power-
ful because of its potential to contribute to the improvement of teachers’ morale
and the quality of their working lives through greater engagement and collabo-
ration. Teacher leadership is a core element in the drive to breathe new life into
the teaching profession after so many years of centralised reform. It offers the
means to rebuild schools as learning communities. We propose that the time has
come for some substantial research into teacher leadership.
Correspondence: David Frost, University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education,
Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge, CB2 2BX, UK.
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Teacher Leadership: towards a

collective responsibility and collaborative working. Central to the idea of dis-

The long standing belief in the power of one is being challenged.

Today there is much more talk about shared leadership, leadership

Southworth’s piece is cautious rather than embracing; it poses questions about

WHAT IS MEANT BY ‘TEACHER LEADERSHIP’?

research evidence that highlights the contribution that middle management

Co-ordinators and Representatives

The approach is distinctive in that it emphasises the capacity of all teachers to

It is not a matter of delegation, direction or distribution of responsi-

Teachers exercise informal leadership … by sharing their expertise,

THE QUESTION OF THE POLICY CONTEXT

The development of teacher leadership is linked to the wider context of the

‘instructional leadership’, which is a top-down way of thinking about improving

very nature of teacher professionalism. Consequently, in any research endeavour

THE NATURE OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP

turn needs to be applied to the organisational context of schools.

DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP AND ORGANISATIONAL EFFECTIVE-

With structuration theory, Giddens provided relief from this straitjacket. In

such a situation, a larger number of members of the organisation have a stake

KEY FACTORS IN THE ANALYSIS OF TEACHER LEADERSHIP

Construction of the Professional Role of Teachers

The Organisational Environment

understanding. This is closely related to knowledge but it is nevertheless distinct.

want to have influence need to be able to read situations which requires a

leadership depends on a range of factors which are outlined in figure 1,

FIG. 1. Factors shaping teacher leadership

These factors could constitute the framework for an empirical investigation of

FIG. 2. Research aims.

ICSEI (International Congress on School Effectiveness and Improvement), Sydney, Aus-

KRUG, S. (1992) Instructional leadership: a constructivist perspective, Educational Administration

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