Abstract
Increasingly, teachers are acknowledged as crucial actors whose informal leadership is essential for educational quality. This study aims to better understand teacher leadership in secondary schools, by exploring its intensity, context, impact, and the interaction between them. Semistructured interviews with 16 informal teacher leaders in secondary education in the Netherlands are conducted. The results show that teacher leaders use different intensities, that school contexts both reinforced and hindered teacher leadership, and that the impact varied among teacher leaders. We identified three patterns of teacher leadership: (a) empowered teacher leaders in reinforcing contexts with positive/desirable impact; (b) demotivated struggling teacher leaders in hindering contexts with negative/undesirable impact; and (c) struggling teacher leaders with high motivation but in hindering contexts and with mixed impact. We conclude that teacher leadership does not automatically lead to positive outcomes (such as motivation, school development, and improved classroom practices) but can also result in negative consequences (such as demotivation). We suggest opening up the dialogue in schools with colleagues and school principals about teacher leadership using the three identified patterns as a starting point.
Introduction
More insight into informal teacher leadership is needed since it is a powerful way of improving educational quality (Akman, 2021; Fairman and Mackenzie, 2014). Such quality is increasingly contested, due to issues like sustainability, artificial intelligence, climate change, geopolitical tensions, and citizenship (OECD, 2024). Various scholars have pointed at teachers as important sources for change within schools and education and have used teacher leadership to emphasize the role teachers can or should take therein (Aliu et al., 2024; Muijs et al., 2013). Moreover, there are increasing calls for teacher leaders who strive to set new learning goals for current and future generations and improve educational practices to benefit their pupils’ learning (Nguyen et al., 2020). Research into teacher leadership has often been dominated by theoretical or conceptual discussions (e.g. definitions of teacher leadership, questioning if every teacher needs to be—or can be—a teacher-leader, and differences between informal and formal teacher leadership, see Snoek et al., 2019) while empirical studies have focused on elements of teacher leadership; perceptions of and conditions for teacher leadership; and the impact of teacher leadership on, for example, student achievement (Schott et al., 2020). Gordon et al. (2021) found that teacher-leaders were highly valued and appreciated, but they concluded that little was known about how teacher leadership and school culture affected each other.
In this article, we conceptualize teacher leadership as “the process by which teachers, individually or collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of school communities to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement” (Hairon et al., 2015: 178), since Schott et al. (2020) suggested this definition to increase scholars’ consistency. Further, this conceptualization aligns with multiple reviews on teacher leadership that have shown that such leadership commonly includes exerting influence (rather than a role or function) and various actions beyond formally assigned roles. Further, it can occur on all levels in the school and is associated with influencing others and groups, decision-making processes, and striving for desired outcomes, such as improving pupil learning (Nguyen et al., 2020; Schott et al., 2020; Wenner and Campbell, 2017). Teacher leadership can be executed with different intensities, which can be more or less intended or consciously chosen as a personal strategy for enacting teacher leadership (Meirink et al., 2020; Rogers and Scales, 2013). This means, among other things, that teacher leadership does not solely refer to making particular, individual choices in one's classroom practices. It indeed refers to actively taking the lead in favor of educational- and/or school improvement, in an informal way.
Research by Oppi et al. (2020) shows that teacher leadership, under certain conditions, can lead to positive outcomes, mostly on the individual level and less on groups, school- or even beyond the school level. Informal teacher leaders, then, take the initiative—to a more or lesser extent—to affect decision-making processes to improve such educational practices (Muijs and Harris, 2006). Following the definition of teacher leadership (Hairon et al., 2015), as suggested by Schott et al. (2020), we aimed to gain more insight into informal teacher leadership. We were particularly interested in with which intensity teachers enact their leadership, which contextual elements are at stake, and the impact of teacher leadership. Drawing on teacher leadership as a process (Nguyen et al., 2020), and given that much research emphasizes the positive effects of teacher leadership, this study examines which patterns can be identified between intensity, contexts, and impact. Instead of profiles (Ho et al., 2025) or styles (Kale and Özdelen, 2014), we prefer using patterns to emphasize the interactions between personal and contextual elements. Identifying patterns can increase our understanding of why teacher leadership leads to desired or undesired outcomes. It can also inform research, policy, and practice and improve our understanding of how teacher leadership is enacted in day-to-day school practices, which is often a black box (Schott et al., 2020). Therefore, the main research question is: “What patterns of teacher leadership can be distinguished in the context of secondary schools?” The following subquestions further guided our study: (1) What is the intensity of teacher leadership? (2) How do school contexts affect teacher leadership? (3) What is the impact of teacher leadership?
To answer this research question, a descriptive and qualitative multiple case study, including semistructured interviews with 16 teachers working in secondary schools, was used. This study is conducted in the Netherlands, in which teacher leadership is not a formalized or standardized function, but often an informal role initiated by teachers’ affinity and expertise about a certain topic (Snoek et al., 2019). This does not exclude that informal teacher leaders can enact their leadership in more formal settings or more formal ways, informal refers to the position of teacher leaders (i.e. a role instead of a function or an employment). Moreover, Fairman and Mackenzie (2014) concluded that informal teacher leaders were perceived as at least as equally valuable as school principals in school improvement due to their collaborative work.
Theoretical framework
Intensity of teacher leadership
Teacher leadership is an interactive process in which different actors negotiate meaning to change or improve current practices in schools (Vennebo, 2017). In doing so, teachers can choose how to perform their informal leadership, which Rogers and Scales (2013) and York-Barr and Duke (2004) refer to as intensity. Following this conceptualization, we view intensity as an active and deliberate effort in which teacher-leaders use diverse ways of their leadership, depending on specific situations and contexts (Poekert et al., 2016). Thus, the intensity of teacher leadership varies between “more on the background” to “taking the lead to initiate changes” (Rogers and Scales, 2013). Intensity might or might not be a deliberate choice and might depend on the perceived boundaries within the school organization (Kayi-Aydar, 2015), referring to cultural (e.g. ideas, values, beliefs), structural (e.g. relationships, roles, power, trust), or material (e.g. resources, physical environment) conditions in schools and the degree to which they are perceived as available, flexible, or changeable (Oolbekkink-Marchand et al., 2017; Vangrieken et al., 2015). Rogers and Scales (2013) distinguished among three types or ways of intensities, namely, witness (e.g. sharing information with colleagues, attending relevant meetings, observing), participation (e.g. assisting colleagues, participating in a project, showing expertise), and ownership (e.g. organizing a movement, initiating changes, having an original vision). Rogers and Scales (2013) also found that witnessing, ownership, and participation were equally divided over the reported activities in their study into preservice teachers’ leadership. Likewise, Meirink et al. (2020) showed that beginning teachers deliberately chose to show ownership while others chose to observe (i.e. witnessing) or ask critical questions (i.e. participation). Intensity is something different than the wide range of approaches, strategies, or tactics teachers can use to perform their leadership (Aliu et al., 2024; Schott et al., 2020). For example, York-Barr and Duke (2004) and Muijs and Harris (2006) found respectively seven domains of what teacher leaders do (e.g. participation in educational changes processes) or five dimensions of teacher leadership (e.g. shared-decision making). In this article, we assume that intensity of informal teacher leadership can differ between such domains or dimensions (Gordon et al., 2021). In our study, we used witness, participation, and ownership to describe the intensity of informal teacher leadership.
School contexts affecting teacher leadership
The intensity of teacher leadership is not only the result of personal efforts and characteristics of teachers but it also depends on the (perceived) opportunities in school contexts (Muijs and Harris, 2006). Nguyen et al. (2020) concluded that such opportunities, referring to both structural and cultural elements or conditions, affected the intensity and impact of teacher leadership and that such elements could differ within and between schools. They found four main categories of contextual factors affecting opportunities for teacher leadership, namely, school culture (e.g. shared commitment, collegiality), school structure (e.g. supportive and open conditions, space for development), leadership of school principals (e.g. beliefs about teacher leadership, frequency of interactions), and peer relationships (e.g. collegial support, mutual role acceptance). Moreover, Gordon et al. (2021) found that factors affecting teacher leadership differed per level in the school. They concluded that teacher-leaders collaborated extensively with their colleagues with a focus on improving student learning but also worked directly with their students both within and beyond classroom interactions to improve educational quality. Lai and Cheung (2015) showed that it is not only school cultural- and structural elements that affect opportunities for teacher leadership, but also new curriculum requirements and procedures and external demands of subject-matter development affect their leadership, which Schott et al. (2020) also found.
In their empirical and theoretical model, Smylie and Eckert (2018) emphasized that teacher leadership practices and development should be seen as part of a larger system, in which different elements directly (e.g. principal support) and indirectly (e.g. institutional policies) affect opportunities for teacher leadership. Bellibas et al. (2020) showed that school principals have the opportunity to enhance informal teacher leadership. Thus, opportunities for teacher leadership are affected by different elements on various levels in schools (e.g. in the subject team, in a project, in collaboration with the school's management, and classrooms, Emira, 2010). In this study, the four categories identified by Nguyen et al. (2020) were used as the main categories in this study for identifying which elements on which school level (i.e. school culture, school structure, school principals, and relationships with colleagues), as perceived by teacher leaders, affecting their teacher leadership.
Impact of teacher leadership
Frost and Durrant (2002) referred to impact as the more or less beneficial effects or outcomes of teacher leadership, which can be seen at the individual, group, or organizational level. More specifically, they developed a comprehensive framework for thinking about the impact of teacher leadership, by distinguishing five different key sections, namely impact on development work, teachers, school as an organization, beyond the school, pupil learning, and evidence of impact (e.g. evaluation and monitoring). Nguyen et al. (2020) and Gordon et al. (2021) confirmed that the impact of teacher leadership could manifest on distinct levels in the school, namely, on students and their learning processes, on other teachers (both on individual and team levels), and continuous school improvement. Schott et al. (2020) expanded this classification by identifying “supra”-school-level impacts of teacher leadership, indicated by, for example, teacher networks or policy influence.
In addition, the impact of teacher leadership is also affective in nature. For example, the impact can be perceived or evaluated to be more positive, desirable, and intended or negative, undesirable, and unintended in nature (Schott et al., 2020). Desirable effects of teacher leadership can be explained by the fact that teachers become more motivated when they perceive they have the power or feel energy to influence and give direction to current practices or new developments in their schools, to impact professional dialogs in their schools between teachers and school leaders, and to try to have more impact in educational practices and student learning (Gordon et al., 2021; Shen et al., 2020). Akman (2021) showed that teacher leadership is strongly related to teacher self-efficacy and performance. However, an increasing amount of studies now show that teacher leadership can also lead to (unintended) negative outcomes, such as pressure and stress on teacher-leaders or tensions between teachers and school principals (York-Barr and Duke, 2004). For example, Fosco et al. (2023) found in their narrative review that teacher leadership can enhance teacher well-being, but it can also backfire since there is a significant chance that it increases for example teacher stress, workload, and role ambiguity. On an organizational level, Wenner and Campbell (2017) showed that teacher leadership can hinder decision-making processes and increase role conflict. Schott et al. (2020) suggest looking into potential negative consequences of teacher leadership, such as elements of burnout or work–home interference. Such potential negative consequences of teacher leadership are foremost situated on the impact level of the teacher and the school (Frost and Durrant, 2002).
In this study, we take both potential positive/desirable and negative/undesirable impacts of teacher leadership into account, which could be prevalent on different levels within and beyond the school (Frost and Durrant, 2002). Herewith, we assume that the intensity of teacher leadership, the school context, and the impact of teacher leadership mutually affect each other (Aliu et al., 2024). For example, a teacher leader takes the initiative to assemble a new project team in which new materials are developed to increase pupils’ autonomy (i.e. intensity), and the school leader is supportive in favor of that initiative, facilitating this project for one year (i.e. context). Such a supportive context affects the teacher leader's motivation positively (and of the project team) to further work on increasing autonomy. After one year of working and implementing, the first results show an increase in how pupils perceive autonomy in their learning. Both the motivational aspect and the increase of pupils’ perceptions of autonomy are indications of impact. Another example of this mutuality is a teacher leader who takes the initiative to discuss the current assessment program in the subject team, and explains why a new vision on assessment is needed (i.e. intensity). The teacher leader experiences resistance in the team: the current assessments are still working adequately, and why should they be changed, “we don't have time for this” is the main message (i.e. context). The teacher leader is disappointed, and doubts about whether the initiative should be continued (i.e. impact).
Method
Research design
We used a multiple case study (Miles et al., 2014), including a qualitative and descriptive approach to answer the main research question (Denzin and Lincoln, 2000). Case studies on teacher leadership are often used to compare countries or schools. Here, the case-study methodology is used to investigate complex phenomena in multilayered contexts, like teacher leadership in secondary schools (Sinha and Hanuscin, 2017). The individual teacher formed the main unit of analysis in this study, allowing the identification of differences and commonalities of their teacher leadership (i.e. cross-case analysis) since the extent of teacher leadership can differ between teachers (Snoek et al., 2019). Based on these analyses, patterns of teacher leadership were identified on a group level.
Semistructured interviews were employed to gain insights into teacher leadership over the course of one academic year, considering the interactions between intensity, contextual elements, and impact (Schott et al., 2020). Additionally, these interviews were utilized to obtain detailed information about teacher leadership, as they are well-suited to uncover complex and authentic situations (DeRue and Ashford, 2010). The interviews were conducted one time, at the end of the school year. The interviews were therefore retrospective in nature, meaning that teachers reflected upon their leadership over the period of one school year. Teachers’ perceptions were considered the main vehicle for exploring their leadership (Oolbekkink-Marchand et al., 2017).
The interview protocol was developed by all authors (see Appendix 1). The initial interview protocol was based on the theoretical frameworks of Rogers and Scales (2013) for intensity, Nguyen et al. (2020) for context, and Frost and Durrant (2002) for the impact of teacher leadership. We formulated different main interview questions per intensity, context, and impact. Those main questions were asked to all participants, to increase the comparability of the data. We also developed follow-up interview questions, which could be used optionally for specification or concretization purposes. To test this initial interview protocol, we organized three pilot interviews with teachers who were excluded from the final study. Based on these pilots, we improved the interview protocol by making it more explicit that teacher leadership can take different forms that are not right or wrong but depend on personal goals, aims, or intentional choices and how these forms interact with the working contexts. Further, we made it clearer that we were not examining the role of school principals (e.g. no management tasks or hierarchical leadership roles).
The interviews were conducted by the first author and one experienced educational researcher and were held at the school locations where the respondents worked during May and June at the end of the school year. The experienced educational researcher was part of our research team (including all authors) and subsequently actively participated in conducting the design of the study, selecting theoretical frameworks, and conducting and developing the interviews. We started each interview by exploring teachers’ leadership at that moment and by looking back on their leadership in the previous year. This open and general question served as a starting point for the interview about teacher leadership, which also allowed the teacher leaders to start with a general reflection on their current informal leadership. In this way, respondents got used to the way of interviewing and noticed that we were interested in their stories. The sequence of the following interview questions depended on the interactions and the input of the participants and thus had no preset order. For each main theme (intensity, school context, and impact), we asked teachers to reflect on possible meaningful situations, interactions, or insights within the context of their schools. Therewith, the interviews were focused on authentic situations in which the participants experienced teacher leadership (Opfer and Pedder, 2011) and in which interactions between personal and contextual elements occurred within such experiences (Billett, 2004). At the end of the interviews, we checked if all necessary interview questions were asked and then asked the respondents to reflect on the interview (e.g. allowing them to add something they forgot or to explain something they said and believed was necessary to give more information about). The interviews took 33–43 min on average and were audio recorded and fully transcribed. Interviewers made notes for interview and analysis purposes.
Context and participants
In this case study, teachers were purposefully selected. The guidelines for selecting the teacher leaders were: (1) experienced teachers (i.e. >5 years of teaching experience, not in the induction phase), (2) informal leadership role in their school (i.e. taking initiative, based on their expertise and interest, to enhance school development and improvement), and (3) willingness to participate in this research to give full insight into the manifestation of their leadership in the previous year). We used an existing network in the Netherlands of externally financed (i.e. partly financed by the Dutch government) networked professional learning communities (PLCs; see Coenen et al., 2021) to start our recruitment of participants. All teachers participated for at least one school year in the PLC, which means that they were expected to actively contribute to the discussion, transfer insights and developed materials to their school, and reflect on their practices, beliefs, and subject, of which Pineda-Báez et al. (2019) referred to as acting with a moral purpose.
Those networked PLCs aimed to enhance teacher leadership in schools (as part of a national program, see Prenger et al., 2019). Internationally, PLCs are often viewed as powerful means to promote (informal) teacher leadership (Lee and Ip, 2021). The networked PLCs were not objects of our study, but we used participation in them as a criterion for selecting teacher-leaders (i.e. purposeful selection). For this selection, we used a dataset of a nationally funded research project 1 funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science. In the Netherlands, teacher leadership is not a predefined formalized or institutionalized role or function; rather, it refers indeed to the dialogical manifestation of leadership of teachers, informally and individually, which is also known as initiators (Snoek et al., 2019). Table 1 presents the background of the selected teacher leaders, including the topic of their teacher leadership, which refers to the main aim of their leadership, which also gives them focus (Snoek et al., 2019).
Informational background on the selected teacher leaders.
Note. * Pseudonyms.
Experience in years at the start of the study.
In total, 16 out of the 43 teachers (i.e. teachers who participated in the nationally funded, networked PLCs) agreed to participate (n = 16; participation rate = 37.2%). Nonresponse was due to time limitations and participation in other research projects. Participation in the study was voluntary, and we explicitly emphasized that teachers could stop participation whenever they wanted. The participants differed in their years of experience, school subjects, and topics (Table 1). The teachers all worked in different schools. The topics refer to content-related issues and interests of the participating teachers on which their teacher leadership was focused in the year the research was conducted. In total, six male (37.5% of the total) and 10 female teachers (62.5% of the total) participated, with an average of 17.6 years of teaching experience (ranging from 10 years to a maximum of 30 years, SD = 8.7 years).
Analysis
Step 1
The first step included transcribing the audio data and organizing the original data into one data matrix per teacher, a visual display in which the data are ordered and structured (Miles et al., 2014). The purpose of composing such a matrix was to construct a configuration of the data for each teacher (Davis and Sumara, 1997). The organization of the matrix was both temporal (e.g. teachers looking back at the previous school year) and conceptual (e.g. dividing fragments based on our main concepts of intensity, school context, and impact; see McCormack, 2004). As such, the matrices served two functions: (a) selection (i.e. only utterances revealing information specific for teacher leadership and purposes were included; all other or more general utterances were excluded); and (b) structure (i.e. because the interviews were semistructured, without a preset order of questions, the data needed to be ordered by or assigned to the theoretical concepts, in a way that possible linkages and differences between constructs became explicit; Maxwell, 2005). This type of matrix is a combination of a time-ordered and checklist matrix since it enables us to distribute fragments and utterances in a temporal order and to check whether we have “ticked all the boxes” of the topics as addressed here (Miles et al., 2014). The first author created an initial draft of the matrix for each teacher, after which an experienced educational researcher (i.e. the same person who assisted in conducting the interviews) checked for alignment with the three main concepts (i.e. intensity, context, and impact). Check for alignment included a comparison between the coding scheme and the matrix, by checking if the fragments were adequately distributed in the matrix and if the matrix allowed us to present the information from the interviews. Slight adjustments then were made. For example, an open field was added in which researchers could post their methodological, practical, and/or theoretical reflections. We also discussed what to do with fragments that could not be subscribed to one of our main categories, but which were indeed interesting to understand the way teacher leadership takes place (e.g. personal motivation for teaching, or general thoughts about the educational vision of the school). We added an “open field” for such fragments, which were not further coded but used as background information to understand the current situations of our respondents. The matrices were digitally completed, and all data were safely stored following the institutional and scientific guidelines appropriate to this research. This step resulted in a clear visual overview in which we applied the codes.
Step 2
We then developed a coding scheme to identify differences in the intensity, school context, and impact of teacher leadership (Table 2). We used a combination of inductive and deductive analysis to identify and define the codes. We used different frameworks for our main concepts of intensity (Meirink et al., 2020; Rogers and Scales, 2013), school context (York-Barr and Duke, 2004), and impact (Frost and Durrant, 2002; Nguyen et al., 2020), which we applied to our data. All four authors read three matrices (i.e. three randomly selected from the total of 16 teachers), and we found that we needed to reformulate the descriptions of the three intensities of teacher leadership to align with our data (which included, e.g. experienced teachers instead of beginning teachers; see Meirink et al., 2020).
Coding scheme for intensity, school context, and impact of teacher leadership.
For example, we reformulated the description of “participation” in a more positive way to describe what teachers purposefully do instead of what they do not do. Regarding school context, we used an inductive analysis in which we used teacher perceptions as a starting point for identifying general and evaluative codes. Such perceptions refer to personal feelings and evaluations considering the extent to which their school contexts were reinforcing or hindering teacher leadership. We identified two main codes for school context, namely, hindering or reinforcing. Again, we used teacher perceptions as a starting point, and we were able to identify three general feelings of impact, namely, negative/undesirable, mixed, and positive/desirable. The mixed category was added to allow us to analyze the impact that includes both negative and positive elements, for example since the impact can differ between the levels in the school. The three different impact levels (i.e. individual, group, organization) of Frost and Durrant (2002) were used in an integrative way, meaning that they were not coded as separate categories, but as viewpoints to detect what the main level per type of impact was. The outcome of this step was a developed and validated coding scheme, ready to be used for analyzing the matrices (Table 2).
Step 3
We then performed a vertical or within-case analysis with the individual teacher as the unit of analysis (Miles et al., 2014), meaning that we applied the developed coding scheme (Table 2) to all 16 matrices (i.e. deductive analysis) for intensity of teacher leadership, school context, and impact. We used repeated interpretative coding, the writing of interpretative memos, and iterative checking of the tentative interpretations against the full dataset. Three coded matrices (i.e. from Step 2) were checked by the second and third authors to control for adequate use of the coding scheme. We concluded that the codes were adequately applied but that the “unit of analysis” could be defined more clearly. We added a clear definition of what we considered as fragments, based on a direct content-analysis approach (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). Fragments were defined as meaningful chunks in the data, in which a respondent elaborated on a specific topic (a new fragment started when another topic was introduced) and checked all applied codes. The final result of this step was a systematic and coded matrix for each teacher, illustrated by extensive quotations from the data.
Step 4
To compare the matrices, we performed a cross-case analysis (Miles et al., 2014). The first author and a trained research assistant compared and contrasted the outcomes of the coding process by cross analyzing the coded matrices. Through categorizing, comparison, and further conceptualization, we identified patterns that allowed us to combine and conceptually interpret and integrate the experiences of teacher leadership. We conceived patterns here as overarching, temporal, and representative thematic combinations among the intensity of teacher leadership, interactions with the contexts, and the impacts or outcomes (Cheng and Szeto, 2016). Representative means that more than two teachers need to be classified per pattern. All authors agreed that these identified patterns were representative of the stories teachers told us in their retrospective interviews. The patterns also included if-then reasonings, referring to teachers who explicated relations between, for example their initiatives, their school context, and the (intended) impact of their informal leadership (Opfer and Pedder, 2011). As such, identifying patterns had at least a descriptive as well as a distinguishing function. With no exception, we were able to assign all 16 teachers across the patterns (meaning that each teacher could be allocated into one of the three patterns). Further, no other patterns were identified in this dataset. Three matrices (i.e. the same as used in steps 2 and 3) were independently checked by the second and third authors for their attribution to one of the three patterns. The attribution was confirmed by those two authors.
Step 5
To check the quality of the analysis steps, we scrutinized the analyses by the first and second authors, who had independently analyzed all interviews and how they were transferred to the matrices as well as the way they were represented therein. Scrutinizing included collaboratively reflecting on the process of performing steps 1–4, by checking if all steps were performed adequately and by reflecting on the accuracy of the analysis (e.g. are all teachers well-presented in analyzing their intensity, context, and impact, are the teachers well divided over the three patterns and do we applied our ethical rules correctly). Finally, we all checked and discussed all selected fragments for illustration purposes.
Results
The interviews resulted in three patterns of teacher leadership (Table 3), around which we structured this section accordingly. These patterns are the following: (1) empowered teacher leaders (i.e. ownership–reinforcing context–positive/desirable impact), (2) demotivated teacher leaders (i.e. witness or participation–hindering context–negative/undesirable impact), and (3) struggling teacher leaders (i.e. ownership–hindering context–mixed impact). This distribution of the teacher leaders is as follows: n = 9 empowered teacher leaders (56.3%), n = 3 demotivated teacher leaders (18.8%), and n = 4 struggling teacher leaders (25%).
Intensity, context, impact, and patterns of teacher leadership.
Note. * Pseudonyms.
Table 3 shows that all teachers in the first (i.e. empowered) and third pattern (i.e. struggling) show ownership. This shows that ownership does not necessarily lead to the empowerment of teacher leaders. Teacher leaders in the second pattern (i.e. demotivated) show witness and participation as main intensities. That intensity, in combination with hindering contexts and negative/undesirable impact, lays the foundation of their demotivation.
Empowered teacher leaders: Ownership–reinforcing context–positive/desirable impact (Pattern 1)
This pattern centered on empowering practices and contexts, alignment among teacher motivations, opportunities for school development, and active involvement of colleagues and/or school principals. Nine teachers showed this pattern in their interviews (n = 9, 56.3%). The teachers within this pattern all show some reciprocally between the intensity, context, and impact, referring to the process that the intensity of their leadership is reinforced by specific contextual elements (e.g. colleagues, school leaders) and by the perceived impact (e.g. improvement of the learning of their pupils, increased dialog in the school). Note that four of the nine teachers experienced, besides strong reinforcing contextual influence, also hindering contextual elements (i.e. Duncan, Rafael, Mandy, and Wesley).
Intensity
All nine teacher leaders within this pattern show ownership of their topic of interest. For example, Jasmine reflects on her lessons and how to improve them: “At this moment I’m concerned with thinking about how I can organize and implement the project week: how can I implement that in a meaningful way?” and “The project included different classes and all pupils could participate during breaks in the schools. We worked together with different organizations, of which some of them talked with our pupils and participated in some lessons” (Jasmine). David showed ownership in his initiative, in close cooperation with his direct colleague, to sustain their initiative. He stated: “That means that we are doing three things. That is writing a recommendation for our direction about how we want to take concrete steps in renewing education in one specific department next year. Also, because my colleague is the coordinator of that and I come into contact with it a lot as dean. So that is very nice. Furthermore, we are giving a presentation about the results of our project so far. So, we are also making a presentation, a Prezi, my colleague and me. That is also in the pipeline. And then the third point is when we will get the ‘go-ahead’ from the management to get started, also next year. We will discuss that soon.” David (and his colleague) thus showed ownership, by making temporary results explicit and by initiating conversations to sustain their effort in favor of the specific target group of pupils.
Context
The cases of Rafael, Mandy, Duncan, and Wesley showed that the contexts included predominantly reinforcing elements for their leadership, but sometimes also or at the same time some hindering elements (e.g. lack of time, high work pressure, fixed learning culture, and disinterest of colleagues/school leaders). For example, Wesley stated: “So many things are happening in the school at the same time that time runs out for self-development. That is really disappointing. We need to make choices, or the glass stays half full. My colleagues in my subject department, for instance, know about my participation in the professionalization program; I informed them (my colleagues). But for really working together and learning from each other, time is lacking.” However, they were able to transcend such hindering elements and maintain their goal to increase their impact. Teachers within this pattern further showed that the scope of leadership was often beyond their classroom: they were able to affect current practices in the school, curricula, or assessment activities. For example, respectively Jasmine and Sabine confirmed the impact of their leadership: “There are things that I think about, you help pupils to further build their self-image. And it is even broader because our whole subject team is involved. That is really valuable for me” (Jasmine) and “I’m currently developing new materials for my lessons. I actively ask my colleagues for feedback frequently and I receive positive reactions and they think with me constructively” (Sabine).
Impact
Jasmine refers to a change in the actual curriculum in the school and broadened insights in other classes with other colleagues. Monique and Wesley, respectively, postulate: “I often have positive energy and innovative ideas. I learn to look differently at specific things and to become less strict in following lesson plans, books, or structured programs. I learn to work together and to develop new materials” and “I receive opportunities for experimentation (from my colleagues and my formal school leaders) and to go beyond our book to search for opportunities for our pupils to learn other skills in another way, focused on a specific topic” (Monique). Wesley reflects on his leadership as follows: “I try things in my classes and I have the feeling that I grow as a teacher.” Moreover, Mandy experiences that motivation of teachers and pupil learning are affecting each other positively: “Well, we feel that we are in control, that we are acknowledged as professionals (by the formal school leaders), that we get opportunities to work something out. This is positive and even affects our pupils.”
Within this pattern, the role of direct colleagues (often in the subject department) and the school principals of these nine teacher-leaders—in the sense of encouragement, facilitating opportunities, and appreciation—was an important element reported by nearly all teachers, as was the idea of opportunities for innovation in the school curriculum. For example, Jacklyn stated: “Before finishing my research proposal, I asked a colleague in my subject department to read it critically. He asked me some questions about the specific design and formulated some tips and points for improvement. My school offers me a lot of opportunities to conduct my research. And my school leader supports me and gives me useful tips for my research.” The nine teachers within this pattern postulated that such positive interactions also contributed to their professional development (e.g. motivation for further development, and feeling of becoming a better teacher).
Demotivated teacher leaders: Witness/participation–hindering context–negative/undesirable impact (Pattern 2)
This pattern includes contested or restrictive practices for teachers’ leadership. This pattern shows that a lack of school principals’ leadership and a lack of a strong and positive learning culture in the subject teams could decrease opportunities for teachers’ leadership, which could have demotivational impacts. Three (n = 3, 18.8%) teachers showed this pattern, which includes among other things, different intensities of teacher leadership than did teachers in the other two patterns.
Intensity
It was sometimes an initial or deliberate choice for the intensity of witness (Eric) or for participation (Raff and Albert), but they had in common that this choice was an artifact of diverse interactions and experiences with teacher leadership. For example Eric noticed that his leadership changed during the school year, because there was a lack of clear appointments and agreement about the expected outcomes, and there were also a lot of opportunities, too much for Eric: “And that at some point, The more I heard about that at some point and yet other things, that I thought to myself of, just demarcate it. And I got bogged down in the number of possibilities out there, so at a certain point I noticed by myself that I was actually withdrawing.” This latter is an indication of a deliberate choice to witness as intensity of his teacher leadership. He was still involved in the project about ICT, but also perceived negative/undesirable impact at the end of the school year: “I had hopes for myself that, yes what I said. After so many years, you hope to find new, energy is the right word, to look at your profession with fresh eyes again. And if I have to see that now at the end of the year, I think of hmm. I did not achieve that for myself.”
Context
Raff perceived the role of the school leader to be negative (e.g. absent, not really interested, having other beliefs) and to have a negative impact on, for example the intensity of his leadership. Raff stated about both his colleagues and his school leaders: “Well, in the end, I don't think I've done that very much no. I did try to do that something, but yes, there is just, look my colleagues are not interested, the school management is not very interested in that. Or let me put it this way, I do not have that impression that they are. And yes, then it also stops a bit, doesn't it?” As a consequence, the intensity of his teacher leadership changed into participation, which was a deliberate choice: “And we already got that suspicion and at one point it just turned out. Because I ask a very pointed question to the management. I say, well, I have an acquaintance with a huge software company. I said, I would like to ask about that No, no, do not do that said the management, we have been working with (…) for a long time, we have a four-year contract with them. And we are going to set policy there.” The three struggling teacher leaders thus felt that they were not able to affect school improvement and the learning of their pupils and even their colleagues in the way they intended to. A lack of interest of both colleagues and school leaders seems the main cause, which also affected the intensity of their teacher leadership.
Impact
Albert, for example postulated that he perceives a negative/undesirable impact of his practical research in the school, that this is caused by different expectations and beliefs of his school leaders, and that this frustrated him”: It has been pointless, what we have done. And we very quickly got that suspicion and it was confirmed. Not that long ago. And of course that frustrates us enormously. Ah, are we frustrated, yes, because we feel that the workload has become extremely high after all. Huh, what it actually comes down to is. It is very clever of them. They have cut hours, cut so many hours. Of me.” Also, Eric perceives a negative/undesirable impact of his teacher leadership: “Look, the outcome is for me personally it's disappointing in the sense, if you look at well, what do you hope you can do with ICT with that, then I say well, there is if you so look at the yield for the children now in the classroom, then I think of no, that has had no effect. Or had a negligible effect.”
Struggling teacher leaders: Ownership–hindering context–mixed impact (Pattern 3)
This third pattern centered on initiative-taking teachers who wanted to impact their schools but who often faced hindering (e.g. restrictive) elements in the school context. They also perceive mixed impact of their teacher leadership or they doubt about the impact of teacher leadership in the school. Four teachers narrated this pattern in their interviews (n = 4, 25%), namely Julia, Hannah, Jade, and Suze.
Intensity
All four teachers within this pattern showed ownership as the intensity of their teacher leadership. For example, Julia showed ownership, also by explicating that she experienced the school culture as conservative: “… Several developments that are currently stagnating, because it either turns out to be impractical or there are just no resources for it. Yes, and that is simply very frustrating, especially for the well-intentioned teachers, of whom, fortunately, we have quite a few, and yes, we have made that noticeably clear. The management is also very clearly working on it.” Hannah shows her ownership by reflecting on the difference between opportunities in her classroom and the subject team: “I take the initiative to change parts of lessons and chapters more in my way, to do it differently than my colleagues. I cannot organize lessons differently for three or four weeks, then I have to get the rest of my team on board. That is necessary because we also have to be able to align our lessons. I am satisfied with my developed materials, and next year I want to involve the team more.” Suze shows this in another way by reflecting on the need for perseverance and reflection on the tendency to revert to old ways during the school year: “That sinks in with me at that point because I then easily fall back on what you already know, what you already know, what you know is successful. And then you reach for that sooner anyway instead of continuing with the experimenting and re-casting the lessons in that form” (Suze). The teacher leaders thus showed ownership, but related to restrictions in their schools.
Context
Work pressure and a lack of interest from colleagues and school leaders were elements of the context that were perceived as hindering teacher leadership. This was explicated, for example when teachers faced difficulties in their leadership (e.g. a lack of space, no involvement of their colleagues, no practical facilitation). For example, Hannah postulated that the daily practices did not leave room for educational development: “Yes, that learning in school, well, you do not actually do that. No, then you are just with your day-to-day and you, yeah, it goes its way. You do not really dwell on it.” This was due to limited time for her professional development opportunities, but also due to her subject team, in which practical issues were dominant: “About what to do and who does what and, yes. Not that you go into a topic somewhere or exchange material. Although there is a lot of collaboration, but that area is a bit less” (Hannah). And often, taking the initiative to work on school improvement costs a lot of time and energy, which was for those four teachers struggling to balance between personal and professional development and available time: “But with that, I also take the liberty of saying, for example, here at school: well, I have this training course, which costs me my day off every time. The moment I have the space on another day, I have now, I have never done that before, I did this year, because I said, yes, but I have worked so much already, I will change that day. I have no appointments, I have no students, I have other tasks I can do. I will do it at another time, I have invested my time. And I never dared to do that” (Jade).
Impact
The impact of struggling teacher leaders was mixed, indicating by sometimes extraordinarily strong and positive outcomes, and sometimes by frustrating outcomes. Jade, for example narrated strong positive outcomes, for both her school as well as for herself: “For school, it has meant that we have some more ideas of what you can do with E-learning, so to speak, and that we are quite far. But also, the realization that we have a lot of things, we do a lot of things haphazardly, so if we want to give E-learning hands and feet, we have to ensure that we speak the same language within E-learning in a digital portfolio. So that is definitely a next step too” and “Yes, but at all the role of learning, the teaching profession, the collaboration, the school. And so, all those separate roles. But the most important thing is, the moment you learn with each other and really learn, so going outside your comfort zone and really just being in it, you are engaged in learning. And that is always an added value I think.” Suze confirms such positive outcomes, but also sees shortcomings in the impact of her leadership: “Within the time there was, with busy schedules, I experienced a lot of space. The most limiting factor in my space that was just my own time. But my school gave all the space for any lesson cancelations there were absolutely no limiting factors at all. And within the school itself There was really clear discussion going on Well I must say, often within a limited group of people.” Her colleagues and her school leader were, in the first instance, not really involved and interested in her ideas.
Discussion and conclusions
This qualitative multiple case study highlights some key findings about teacher leadership in secondary schools in the Netherlands. We were able to identify three patterns of teacher leadership: (a) empowered teacher leaders (ownership, reinforcing context, and positive/desirable impact); (b) demotivated teacher leaders (witness/participation, hindering context, and negative/undesirable impact); and (c) struggling teacher leaders (ownership, hindering context, and mixed impact). Despite this contribution, various limitations should be kept in mind when interpreting these main findings.
Interpretations and implications
Our results show that intensity, context, and impact interact with each other and that three different patterns of those interactions could be identified, which was not only theoretically assumed but now also empirically confirmed. For instance, perceived impact can affect the intensity of (intended) teacher leadership. Or the context of the school could hinder or reinforce the possibilities for teacher leadership, which consequently could increase the impact. This dynamic interaction is depicted in Figure 1. The model is visualized without linear “arrows,” for preventing claims or expectations of causality and for emphasizing the interactive and embedded nature of teacher leadership (Smylie and Eckert, 2018).
Interactions between intensity, context, and impact of teacher leadership.
The model has potentially different applications. We mention three. First, the model can be used as a starting point for exploring one's teacher leadership in practice. For example, intensity, context, and impact can be used as three separate focus points or perspectives, to explore the current or requested context, its current or desired impact, and the intended or needed ways of teacher leadership. Second, the interaction between intensity, context, and impact and what is needed to sustain or enhance one's teacher leadership can be explored. And third, it can be used individually, but also in a teacher team or with different teacher leaders. The goal would be to increase the awareness of different actors (such as coaches, HR advisors, and school principals), align expectations, and explore one's intentions, purposes, and possibilities in schools. The model has the potential to be used prospectively (e.g. exploring the topic and intentions, forthcoming actions, making appointments) and retrospectively (e.g. reflecting on how teacher leadership was performed, what was consecutive and what not, and what can be learned on both personal and organizational level). Finally, there is no prefixed pathway or “panacea” for enhancing teacher leadership and its development (Sinha and Hanuscin, 2017). It is foremost an individual and collective professional learning process (Hunzicker (2017), of which Beck et al. (2023) referred to developing a professional identity as a teacher leader. Smylie and Eckert (2018) postulated that teacher leadership and its development is part of a broader system, it does not stand on its own.
We found that teacher leadership can increase teachers’ motivation, professional learning, and willingness to take other positions in the schools’ networks (Oppi et al., 2020). In particular, this was the case for teachers in the first pattern (i.e. empowered teachers) and, although less frequently, for teachers in the third pattern (i.e. struggling teachers). Interestingly, some teachers consciously showed initiative to enlarge, extend, or create opportunities for their leadership opportunities or educational innovation, which we perceived as ownership (Rogers and Scales, 2013). These teachers also referred to claiming strategies (DeRue and Ashford, 2010) or to participation and engagement in different practices to increase their influence (Billett, 2006; Rechsteiner et al., 2022). Rechsteiner et al. (2022) postulated that it is essential to understand how opportunities for teacher leadership in schools are perceived and how teachers then make use of these opportunities. Oolbekkink-Marchand et al. (2017) go one step further, by showing that teacher also can take the initiative to enrich or stretch their “space” in the school context. This is what we saw in the cases of for example Jade, Monique, Jasmine, and Mandy.
Simultaneously, our results suggest that teacher leadership is not always a positive, reinforcing, or desirable process; it could also have negative consequences. Schott et al. (2020) stated that most studies show positive impacts of teacher leadership, which could be “too good to be true.” Such negative consequences are more investigated and discussed in the context of hierarchical, formal, and administrative leadership practices (cf. Sam, 2021). Schott et al. (2020) proposed more studies into possible negative consequences of teacher leadership, indicated by, for example stress, role conflicts, burnout, and even negative effects on students and schools. Our study gives clues in that direction as well. It aligns with for example Kasapoglu and Karaca (2021), who have found that school administration, colleagues, and hierarchical structures can be tremendous obstacles to teacher leadership. Interestingly, our study was performed in an educational context with fewer hierarchical issues, competitiveness, and power constellations, which points in the direction that negative consequences of teacher leadership are less dependent on the educational system and structures (Harris, 2005; Wenner and Campbell, 2017). It might be that to prevent such negative outcomes, opportunities for teacher leadership need to be available in the school as well as perceived (or utilized) by teachers. Interestingly, negative consequences on the level of student outcomes or student achievement were not explicitly reported in our study, while, for example Shen et al. (2020) concluded in their meta-analysis that teacher leadership and student achievement are positively associated. Indeed, negative outcomes of teacher leadership were mentioned on a personal- and contextual level. For example, teachers in the second pattern (demotivated teacher leaders) became demotivated due to the feedback and reactions they received and perceived from different colleagues and school leaders. But also, teachers in the third pattern (struggling teacher leaders) showed indications of such contrived interactions. The most commonly mentioned elements were a lack of a learning culture in the subject teams and appreciation (e.g. explicit valuing of teacher-leadership initiatives) and commitment (e.g. involvement with the content of the initiatives, often related to school improvement; Seashore Louis and Moosung, 2016) of colleagues and principals (Oppi et al., 2020). Therefore, our study confirms that teacher leadership is highly social in nature (Frost and Durant, 2002), since it depends on the interactions between teacher leaders and their colleagues and school principals (Vennebo, 2017), for idea-generation purposes, support, and critical feedback (Hunzicker, 2017). Bellibas et al. (2020) showed that school principals can enhance informal teacher leadership, while teacher agency plays a key role in such enhancement.
Limitations and future research
The three identified teacher leadership patterns can be investigated more in-depth, for example by exploring the intensity, impact (also intended), and context in different moments during the school year, and how they mutually affect each other and in what sequence? We also saw that those negative consequences were explicated on a personal- and contextual level, and not on a student level (Harris, 2005). This allows for more research into the “linearity” of teacher leadership impact (Schott et al., 2020). We assume that follow-up research could be of particular interest when further investigating the positive and also more negative consequences of teacher leadership.
In our attempt to understand teacher leadership, we used retrospective and semistructured interviews, which resulted in rich and authentic data from 16 teachers in 16 different schools, all of whom had participated in a networked PLC. Because our main goal was to describe the intensities, contexts, and impact of teacher leadership as well as the interactions between them, we enlarged the possibility of finding such interactions by purposefully selecting teachers who were in informal and already existing teacher leadership positions. The results give reason to assume that even though the teachers participated in these PLCs, teacher leadership was still a challenge in terms of learning to become a teacher leader (Pineda-Báez et al., 2019), which includes, among other things, developing self-efficacy for leadership (Li and Liu, 2020), exploring collective teacher efficacy (Schaap et al., 2018), and the ability to perform boundary-crossing activities (Rechsteiner et al., 2022), for example among PLCs and schools or within schools among different teams or on different levels in the organization (Lai and Cheung, 2015).
Furthermore, we realize that our design limits the generalizability of our findings, and we agree with Schott et al. (2020) that one could ask whether the grain size of our design (i.e. one retrospective interview over one school year) and the power (e.g. one single country, one single method) were sufficient to reveal the dynamics of teacher leadership sufficiently. We also conducted a study in one single country (i.e. the Netherlands), in which informal teacher leadership is more commonly accepted and used. Our results therefore need to be carefully used and interpreted with care, in the light of such shortcomings. More comparative research on differences and commonalities between different countries and educational systems (e.g. more or less hierarchies, governmental involvement, teacher autonomy) can add to our knowledge about how teacher leadership manifests in diverse cultures.
Frequent and combined measurements might reveal a more dynamic way of how teacher leadership occurred, in particular, over a longer time than one school year such as in our study. It might be that patterns could change over the years because of changing circumstances, specific interventions of teacher leaders themselves, or interventions of school principals. Using a smaller grain size (e.g. using log files and more interviews during the school year), or a multiperspective triangulation approach (e.g. by also interviewing one direct colleague and a direct school leader) could yield additional results in depth.
Our results might suggest at least an implicit normative perspective, referring to the feeling that ownership, participation, and witness as different levels of intensity were intended to be presented in a hierarchical order (i.e. in the sense that ownership is, for example “better” or the “most desirable”; cf. Meirink et al., 2020). Indeed, we can assume that different combinations, sequences, or variations are needed for teacher leadership, depending on specific interactions between personal and contextual elements. For example, Eric's case shows that “witness” was, for him, a deliberate choice because he thought and felt this was the best option, given the context and circumstances. This idea also raises more or new questions, including the following: Why do teachers “use” or “choose” different intensities? To what extent is this a deliberate process in terms of actions, behavior, or strategies (e.g. making choices in how and what to influence, cf. Pineda-Báez et al., 2019)? What are the consequences of such choices, for example, in relationships with colleagues and supervisors and in motivation?
Conclusions
Our results add to the prior research on teacher leadership, by identifying specific interactions between intensity, context, and impact. This interaction is often theoretically emphasized but at the same time a complex phenomenon to investigate empirically (Schott et al., 2020). We showed that teacher leadership often leads to positive outcomes (such as motivation, school development, and improved classroom practices) but can also have negative consequences (such as demotivation and frustration), caused by restrictive and conducive school contexts (e.g. lack of a learning culture, work pressure, destructive interactions with colleagues and school principals, cf. Zydziunaite et al., 2020). This is an important finding since the literature about teacher leadership is positive in nature (Nguyen et al., 2020; Schott et al., 2020). We suggest opening up the dialog in schools with colleagues and school principals about teacher leadership using the three identified patterns as a starting point, to sustain empowered teacher leaders and to prevent teacher leaders from demotivation and frustration, which is of major importance for enhancing educational quality.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Nationaal Regieorgaan Onderwijsonderzoek (Grant No. 405-14-403).
