Teacher leadership and school improvement

The issue of leadership for school improvement is now high on the research and policy agendas of many countries. With some inevitability, thinking about leadership has tended to focus on head teachers and how they exercise leadership. There remains a prominent belief in the leadership of the headteacher as the single source and direction of leadership in the school. This reinforces the ‘heroic view’ of leadership where the skills and abilities to turn things around in a school are located in certain individuals. Sergiovanni (2001: 55) notes: It remains that the superhero images of leadership do not work. And it remains that mandates and incentives are not powerful enough to function as engines that will drive our efforts to improve schools. In tomorrow’s world success will depend upon the ability of leaders to harness the capacity of locals, to enhance sense and meaning and to build communities of responsibility.