The Nature of Teacher Leadership in Schools as Reciprocal Influences Between Teacher Leaders and Principals

Theories of Practice: Understanding the Practice of Educational Leadership

“…Research indicates that principals can indeed have a positive if indirect effect on student achievement (Hallinger & Heck, 1998;Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005;Witziers, Bosker, & Kruger, 2003), and these effects are mediated through the principal's ability to shape relationships among school staff and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of teachers (Anderson, 2004;Basom & Frase, 2004;Blase & Blase, 1999;Short, 1994;Davis & Wilson, 2000;Keedy & Simpson, 2001;Spillane & Thompson, 1997). By fostering relationships of caring, trust, collaboration, experimentation, inquiry and risk-taking, schools can potentially become centers of inquiry, rather than targets of change, and have far greater capacity for increasing student achievement (Sirotnik, 1989).…”

Principal theories of practice : mapping the cognitive structure and effects of instructional leadership

“…effect on student achievement (Hallinger & Heck, 1998;Marzano et al, 2005;Witziers, et al, 2003), and these effects are mediated through the principal's ability to shape relationships among school staff and the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of teachers (Anderson, 2004;Basom & Frase, 2004;Blase & Blase, 1999;Short, 1994;Davis & Wilson, 2000;Keedy & Simpson, 2001;Spillane & Thompson, 1997). By fostering relationships of caring, trust, collaboration, experimentation, inquiry and risk-taking, schools can potentially become centers of inquiry, rather than targets of change, and have far greater capacity for increasing student achievement (Sirotnik, 1987).…”

“…Principals have a positive impact on school culture by encouraging teacher empowerment through self-managed teacher leadership teams (Davis & Wilson, 2000;Short, 1994), encouraging teacher networking and building relationships of trust (Spillane & Thompson, 1997), engaging in specific instructional leadership practices that increase teacher motivation and self-efficacy (Basom & Frase, 2004;Blase & Blase, 1999), and sharing leadership and being open to reciprocal influences from effective teacher leaders (Anderson, 2004;Keedy & Simpson, 2001). Schools are essentially sets of interconnected relationships (Keedy & Achilles, 1997).…”

The effect of teacher leader interactions with teachers on student achievement: a predictive study.

“…Frequency data provided a discussion focus that assisted in shrinking the amount of data to a workable size as well as upholding the integrity of each participant's perspective. Andersen (2004) found that all participants recognized that teacher leaders exerted influence on principals. Significantly greater influence of principals on teacher leaders also emerged from the data.…”

“…This model appeared to Andersen (2004) and students) participated in two, independent interviews. The first focus group interviews preceded the initial individual interviews, and the second focus group interview followed the conclusion of all individual interviews.…”