School Leadership Roles and Standards: Observations from the International Study of Teacher Leadership

This paper was commissioned by the Global Education Monitoring Report as background information to assist in drafting the 2024/5 GEM Report, Leadership in education.

This report summarizes the findings of the International Study of Teacher Leadership(ISTL), conducted in 12 countries. The researchers share descriptions of the increasing interest in teacher leadershipas a factor in student learning and school improvement. ISTL researchers focus primarily on classroom-based teachers who—in collaboration with formal school leaders, parents, community members, and colleagues—impact school-wide decision making and pedagogical practices.

The report offers insights related to teacher leader behaviours, the complexity of teacher leadership, how teacher leaders learn to lead, and the importance of contextual factors that support and impede teachers who provide informal leadership to schools and the communities they serve. The researchers compare cross-cultural requirements of good leadership and offer contextually situated analyses of leadership visions and goals, the impact of teacher leadership on educational outcomes, necessary preconditions for effective leadership, and policies that develop teacher leadership.

The researchers also describe the readiness of school communities to embrace teacher leadership, described variously as parallel leadership, shared leadership, and distributed leadership. The report argues for a shift from considering standards for teacher leadership—too often based on the assumption that leadership is consistent across cultural and organizational settings—to the more flexible and contextualized conceptualization of leadership dimensions such as purpose, self-awareness, intentionality, and culture building. The ISTL researchers also argue that teacher leadership is but one component of an integrated approach to educational governance that addresses the complexities of teaching and learning in relation to rapid socioeconomic change, global migration, political tensions, and the emergence of new technologies. The ISTL also reinforces the ongoing importance of classroom teachers in the achievement of educational objectives. The ISTL team concludes this report with a set of research recommendations.