Leading with Moral Purpose: Teacher Leadership in Action

Abstract

Mutualistic goal setting enables members of the school community to reinvigorate and build on the past in order to establish clear goals for the future. That past in the case study schools of this chapter is steeped in the various foundations of the schools and manifests in explicit values for action, bringing life to the moral purpose of the school. Teacher leaders emerge from the process with zest for open and active work in parallel with their meta-strategic leaders. They lead with members of the professional community, bringing to life in classrooms the underpinning values of the school's vision for learning. This chapter draws on examples of teacher leaders working in schools that have engaged with the school improvement process of IDEAS (Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievement in Schools) and are leading significant new pedagogical action. Guided by the school improvement process based on building capacity for the alignment of school components through parallel leadership, mutualistic goal setting and collective responsibility, these teachers exemplify leadership that is underpinned by allegiance to an explicit set of values guided by a vision for learning.Each school is different and each teacher leader demonstrates recognised qualities of critical self-reflection, networking, and advocacy for improved student achievement from a contextually relevant vantage point of moral purpose. The result is an identified style of leadership, underpinned by moral purpose, whereby teacher leaders in concert with their metastrategic principal actively engage in the articulation of their school's values and vision for learning through pedagogical leadership and strategic planning.