Exploring school principle’s practices in developing teacher leaders in their school

Abstract

This study reports the practices of school principal in developing teacher leaders in their school based on the five components of teacher leadership proposed by Ohio Department of Education in 2017: encouraging collaboration, increment in students' learning outcomes, initiating innovation and improvement, practicing fairness, and partnering with all stakeholders for better performance of the school. This study is guided by interpretive paradigm. The participants are: a school principal, and 3 teachers working in the school since five years. Two major challenges limiting the school principal in developing teacher leaders are; the school principal is uninformed about the concept of teacher leadership, and the school principal lays great stress on students' higher performance in examination rather than focusing on holistic development of a child. The school principal's practices don't greatly align with what present theories and researches suggest on developing teacher leaders at school, but the principal has led the school to be a successful one. This scenario can be related to the idea of Situational Theory of Leadership, which explains a successful leadership to be a flexible style of leadership where the leader analyzes the situation and acts accordingly, instead of having a certain trait for all instances.