Re-imaging teacher leaders leading school improvement: the untapped potential

Some 20 years ago, teacher leadership was on the verge of an exciting future when this ‘sleeping giant’ (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, 2009) was awakened. While still central to the school improvement agenda, the visibility of teacher leadership as an organisational resource is not overtly apparent. There are significant numbers of schools in Australia that have engaged in reform efforts, and teacher leaders have led the process. What happened to these teacher leaders and what are they doing now? Has their teacher leader potential been realised? This article presents the findings of a study that explored the lived experiences of teacher leaders who have emerged from a school improvement process. Vignettes of five categories of teacher leaders highlight initially, their diverse experiences and significantly, that there is a bank of untapped teacher leader potential lying dormant within Australian education systems. Untapping this potential requires a change in mindset by principals and systems to build organisation-wide teacher leadership capacity