Role Conflict and Role Ambiguity: The Challenges of Team Leadership at a Middle School 1

Abstract

The establishment of teacher leadership teams creates new roles and relationships for teachers and principals within schools and between the school and district. Drawing on video, interview, survey and observational data, we analyze four major School Leadership Team (SLT) actions (role episodes) to explore how the team worked to define its role. Using event mapping, open systems and role theory, we highlight the complex interactions that emerged as teachers and principal implemented bottom up reforms that challenge traditional patterns of interaction. We examine how relationships among the superintendent, principal and SLT contributed to role conflict and role ambiguity. Several implications are presented. First, systems thinking is critical when implementing a major innovation such as site-based management. Schools are complex systems that need to encompass environmental, organizational and intergroup factors, and teachers cannot be empowered without concomitant changes in the district. Relationships with the district are a key factor in a team's ability to assume new responsibilities, implement change, and successfully accomplish goals. Second, enacting a policy to empower teachers and include them in decision making does not predetermine how teachers will interpret and take up the new roles. Finally, roles, responsibilities and relationships need to be specific and coupled with opportunities for on-going negotiation and refinement to overcome inconsistencies between beliefs and practices in ways that can impact student learning.