Title: Transformational teacher leadership: decentring the search for transformational leadership

Authors: Kirk David Anderson

Addresses: Faculty of Education, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Abstract: Using transformational leadership dimensions (Leithwood et al., 1997; Leithwood et al., 1999) to examine the influence of the teacher leaders in rural schools, the author makes the argument that the focus on the principal as the primary source of transformational leadership may be misplaced. If researchers focus on the teachers as leaders outside the traditional leadership roles, such as the relatively formal role-free rural school setting, there exists a promising area of new understanding for educational leadership. Such research can help decenter the principal as the focus of transformational leadership and identify an understudied area important to school improvement and change, notably, the ability of some teacher leaders to be transformational or, more optimistically, to be transformational teacher leaders.

Keywords: teacher leadership; transformational leadership; rural schools; school improvement; school principals.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2008.018388

International Journal of Management in Education, 2008 Vol.2 No.2, pp.109 - 123

Published online: 19 May 2008 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article