The burden of leadership: Exploring the principal’s role in teacher collaboration

Based on qualitative data collected over a 6-month period, this article examines how teachers’ experiences of principal leadership practice influence their capacity to engage in meaningful collegial interactions during structured collaboration. Similar to previous studies, our findings confirm the limitations of leadership that relies primarily on structural changes to foster collaboration. Our findings contribute further to leadership research by presenting teachers’ perspectives on why particular principal leadership practices matter to teacher collaboration and by illustrating how the principal’s enactment of leadership practices influences teachers’ sense of efficacy and motivation, both of which are critical to professional learning during collaboration.