Prescribed distributed leadership in the era of accountability - The experiences of mentor teachers

Oct 15, 2026

Contemporary accountability frameworks cast school leaders as central to raising performance and fostering innovation, while also reshaping leadership in both form and function. This paper examines distributed leadership among teachers who must take on leadership roles while retaining teaching duties. US programs incentivize teacher leadership under claims of empowerment and democratization, but research on one distributed leadership model finds mentor teachers experience tensions between collegial mentoring expectations and bureaucratic control.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Accountability and leadership restructuring

Distributed leadership and teacher dual roles

The mentor teacher within a prescribed model

Article Prescribed distributed leadership in the era of accountability: The experiences of mentor teachers Educational Management Administration & Leadership 2018, Vol. 46(4) 538–555 ª The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permission: [sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav](sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav)[ ](sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav)[DOI: 10.1177/1741143216688469](DOI: 10.1177/1741143216688469)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/1741143216688469)[journals.sagepub.com/home/ema](journals.sagepub.com/home/ema) Jessica Holloway, Ann Nielsen and Sarah Saltmarsh Abstract Contemporary accountability frameworks position school leaders as being essential to improving school performance and driving innovation. Simultaneously, new accountability demands have forced the restructuring of school leadership, both in terms of form and function. In this paper, we look at the growing trend of distributed leadership among teachers who are tasked to assume leadership roles while maintaining their (sometimes reduced) teaching responsibilities. In the US, federally backed programs have incentivized schools to bolster teacher leadership opportunities, often predicated on claims of teacher empowerment and leadership democratization. Given the rise in distributed leadership as a prescribed local governance structure, we examined one popular distributed leadership model in the US to better understand how the teacher leaders are experiencing their dual roles and responsibilities. Drawing on focus group interviews with mentor teachers, we found tension between the teachers’ expectations with regard to increased collegiality and mentoring opportunities, and their actual experiences of bureaucratic control and finding that their expectations were unrealistic. We argue that prescribed, incentive-driven forms of distributed leadership can place teacher leaders in precarious positions that demand more of their time, while limiting their capacities to participate in the leadership practices they deem most valuable. Keywords Teacher leaders, mentor teachers, distributed leadership, peer evaluators Introduction Contemporary accountability frameworks position school leaders as being essential to improving school performance and driving innovation (Heck and Hallinger, 2009; Torrance and Humes, 2015) . Simultaneously, new accountability demands have forced the restructuring of school leadership, both in terms of form and function (Anderson and Herr, 2015; Strain, 2009; Youngs, 2014) . Corresponding author: Jessica Holloway, Kansas State University, 326 Bluemont Hall, 1100 Mid-Campus Drive, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA. Email: [jhollow@ksu.edu](jhollow@ksu.edu) In this paper, we look at the growing trend of distributed leadership among teachers who are tasked to assume leadership roles while maintaining their teaching responsibilities. In the US, federally backed programs have incentivized schools to bolster teacher leadership opportunities, often predicated on claims of teacher empowerment and leadership democratization (Bolden, 2011; U.S. Department of Education, 2014) . However, some scholars have cautioned that the policy trend of expanding data infrastructures has required teacher leaders to absorb the increased administrative responsibilities related to data collection and reporting, a practice which has resulted in a number of different approaches to distributed leadership (Lumby, 2013; Youngs, 2014) . We examined one popular distributed leadership model in the US to better understand how the teacher leaders were experiencing their dual roles and responsibilities. Drawing on focus group interviews with mentor teachers, we found tension between the teachers’ expectations with regard to increased collegiality and mentoring opportunities, and their actual experiences of bureaucratic control and finding that their expectations were unrealistic. We set the study against the backdrop of an increasingly data-demanding conceptualization of educat

FAQs

What is the main focus of the paper?

The paper examines distributed leadership among mentor teachers who are expected to assume leadership roles while continuing teaching responsibilities.

How do the study findings describe mentor teachers’ experiences?

Mentor teachers reported tension between expectations for increased collegiality and mentoring opportunities and their actual experiences of bureaucratic control, finding those expectations unrealistic.

Why does the paper question prescribed distributed leadership models?

It argues that incentive-driven, prescribed forms can place teacher leaders in precarious positions by demanding more time while restricting their ability to participate in leadership practices they value.

Oct 15, 2026

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