Angela de Jong

Summary S 173 teachers (Hooge & Honingh, 2014; Hooge et al., 2019). In addition, future research can study how a collaborative spirit is established and how it develops so that we can help schools to achieve such a spirit. We encourage school principals to use the three leadership patterns to reflect on their own role and leadership practices. They can use the descriptions of these patterns in conversations with their colleagues (co-leaders and teachers) about the desired role of school principals in innovations. In addition, we would encourage school principal development programs to prepare school principals to seek a balance in steering and providing professional space to teachers when new situations arise in school. We would encourage teachers to take a look at their own role and expertise and to discuss this with colleagues (teachers and school principals). Teacher development programs can play a role in helping teachers to become more aware of their own expertise and emphasizing the importance of team expertise. 8. Final remarks History shows that educational innovations are often unsuccessful. One important reason for this is that teachers and school principals are often not asked to be or do not feel involved in deciding on the content or implementation of nation-wide innovations. This dissertation shows that teachers and school principals can take joint responsibility in leading collaborative innovation. A collaborative spirit supports this joint process of distributed leadership in collaborative innovation. Teachers thus need the professional space to be able to lead beyond their role in the classroom. School principals need both to provide professional space to teachers and to steer the strategy, frameworks, boundaries, and vision. This, in turn, means that policy makers and school board members must realize that educational change takes place within schools within day-to-day contexts full of interactions and conversations. Thus, balancing steering the boundaries and vision on the one hand and providing enough professional space to school principals and teachers on the other hand might also be useful for policy makers and school board members. Leading collaborative innovations in schools calls for innovative collaborative leadership practices.

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