Everyday collective leadership: teachers enhancing education and care through goal-directed joint activity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Leadership conceptualized as a formal, individual position of authority has dominated the educational leadership literature. This dominance overshadows theorizing teachers’ important informal leadership. In response, this paper identifies, empirically and theoretically, that teachers’ goal-directed joint activity in team-based settings constitutes collective leadership. Rich qualitative, case study data were generated from the perspectives and practices of two teaching teams within a high-quality early childhood education center in New Zealand. Methods involved observations of teaching practice; team focus group interviews; in-depth, semi-structured individual interviews with 26 participants; and analysis of center documentation. Leadership theory and cultural-historical activity theory substantiated the analysis and interpretation. Teachers’ enactment of collective leadership in open, shared teaching spaces manifested in their joint activity when they collectively participated in, contributed to, and led goal-directed relational processes and practices with colleagues. This main finding suggests positional leaders who encourage purposeful collaboration within collegial, trusting, and empowering environments can foster teachers’ commitment to their work and one another, and their collective enactment of leadership as everyday practice. This paper culminates in an original, theorized model of teachers’ everyday collective leadership in team-based settings as an intentional, sustained, mutually-influencing, and goal-directed activity focused on enhancing the quality of education and care.