TEACHER LEADERSHIP
A common view of leadership is that leaders are strong, often charismatic individuals. They alone persuade others through their forceful personalities or induce compliance through fear. They know what needs to be done and they transform their workplaces into high per- formance organizations by the force of their will. Peter Senge (1999) argues, however, that leadership for deep change requires replacing the myth of the "hero leader" with the con- cept of leadership communities. These communities, he believes, enable the building of leadership capacity throughout the organization so the organization can continually adapt and reinvent itself.
If schools are to be places in which students and educators are successful in their re- spective roles, teachers must be at the core of the leadership communities that Senge envi- sions. Teacher leadership can take many forms. It may include advocating the vision for staff development described in this book as part of collective bargaining, participating on school and district improvement teams to help determine goals and strategies, conducting classroom and schoolwide action research to determine if changes are improving the learn- ing of all students, mentoring new teachers, serving on peer review panels to provide sup- port and assistance to new and veteran teachers, and working on special assignment as coaches or instructional guides to provide ongoing professional learning for their peers.