Reclaiming teacher leadership as learning leadership

Despite the expanding literature on teacher leadership (TL), most studies emphasise how teachers assume leadership roles, with limited attention paid to how leadership is sustained as an ongoing, reflective praxis. This study addresses that gap by conceptualising teacher leadership as learning leadership: an ontological commitment to learning as a way of being. Using phenomenology and semi-structured interviews, 12 TLs were engaged to explore how their leadership was shaped, disrupted and sustained through lived experience. Findings reveal a dynamic leadership praxis characterised by ontological humility, temporal awareness, ethical agency and dialogic responsiveness. Leadership emerged not as fixed or role-bound, but as continuously reconstituted through unlearning, relational depth and pedagogical purpose. The study calls for reimagining teacher leadership as an enduring, inquiry-driven presence – integral to transformational learning cultures. It urges a shift away from technocratic and transactional frameworks towards deeper engagement with the inner life of leadership as lived, ethical and systemically generative.