The role of international school teacher leaders in building leadership capacity within their teams

2018-03-06This study was conducted to evaluate the extent to which, in a high turnover context, teacher leaders at an American International school in Asia were meeting the goal of building capacity within their teams to prepare for effective succession planning. Using Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis framework, the study investigated the knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors affecting teacher leaders’ performance. Using a mixed methods design, the study combined survey, interviews, and documents to answer the following research questions: (1) What are international school teacher leaders’ knowledge and motivation in relation to helping teachers develop their professional growth plan? (2) How do teacher leaders’ knowledge and motivation interact with the school’s context to shape their ability to help other teachers develop their professional growth plan? (3) What are the recommendations for organizational practice in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and organizational resources? Two thirds of teacher leaders in the organization participated in the study through survey, and nine teacher leaders were interviewed. The study found that knowledge and organizational factors were most evident in current gaps within the school, while motivation factors were less evident. The main knowledge factors were around leadership capacity building, goal-setting processes, professional development, and professional learning communities. The motivation factors included self-efficacy and positive emotions. Finally, organizational factors revolved around the cultural models of accountability and empowerment and the cultural settings of incentives and contextual variables in employee turnover. The study provided recommendations for leadership to help support teacher leaders in reaching their stakeholder goal, including job-aid, training, mentoring, and education. It also proposed a developed and integrated implementation and evaluation plan