128 Thirdly, the collaborative spirit implies conversations on improving education in school teams. Members of school teams with higher distributed leadership talk together about schoolwide improvements to education, such as improvements in educational standards and collaboration activities such as reflection and feedback. They thus have conversations about improving education that go beyond their own classrooms. Members of school teams with lower distributed leadership talk less about topics that go beyond their own classroom, tending to focus on their own students and classes. In sum, the collaborative spirit is visible in teams in which 1) team members go beyond formal roles or perceived leaders when they interact; 2) team members are intrinsically motivated; and 3) team members jointly discuss and try schoolwide improvements to education. These elements of the collaborative spirit of a school team respectively refer to how innovation happens, why, and what innovations could or should happen. 6.1.3.4. To conclude Our main research question was: How do school principals and teachers lead collaborative innovation in schools? This dissertation shows that leading collaborative innovation processes in schools occurs in a variety of ways, with varying degrees of involvement of school principals and teachers. We call the dimension underlying these differences collaborative spirit. Teams with high levels of collaborative spirit, interact with each other unrelated to formal roles or perceived leaders, are intrinsically motivated, and jointly discuss and try schoolwide improvements to education. Such a collaborative spirit supports teachers’ and school principals’ distributed leadership practices in leading collaborative innovation. Leading collaborative innovation is thus distributed and balanced in steering and securing space. This means that collaborative innovation should not be led only by school principals nor only by teachers. Both are needed in jointly led collaborative innovation, which goes beyond a culture of individualism. For school principals, this means that as Team Players, they balance steering on frameworks and providing professional space to teachers. They position themselves as part of the team in order to innovate education collaboratively. Within the teams, teachers can enact leadership practices in collaborative innovation by providing advice to others. Coach-teachers can enact leadership practices by structuring collaboration sessions and stimulating both teachers and school principals to collaborate on education. In Figure 6.1, we return to Figure 1.3 (Chapter 1) and summarize our findings on how school principals and teachers lead collaborative innovation.
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