Boss or Colleague? Transforming Leadership for Real Collaboration

🎧 Boss or Colleague? Transforming Leadership for Real Collaboration

Welcome to Research Bites — your quick, evidence-informed listen from EBTD (Evidence Based Teacher Development), helping teachers and leaders in Bangladesh turn research into action.

In this episode, we dive deep into a 2025 qualitative study from Dhaka’s secondary schools exploring the powerful connection between teacher collaboration and school leadership. The findings reveal a striking reality: collaboration is scarce, often stifled by heavy workloads, hierarchical structures, and what the researcher calls an “orthodoxy of leadership.”

But it’s not all bleak. The study also uncovers bright examples of transformational leadership — headteachers who observe lessons, promote shared learning, and create spaces where teachers feel safe to experiment and grow together.

We unpack what those schools did differently, what collaboration should look like, and how both leaders and classroom teachers can start shifting culture from managing to motivating — from being a boss to being a true colleague.

💡 Whether you’re a headteacher, department lead, or classroom teacher, this episode gives you clear, research-backed insights into how leadership can support rather than suppress collaboration.

👉 Read the full study here:
“School Leadership Approach to Teacher Collaboration: A Qualitative Investigation in the Secondary School Context of Bangladesh”

👉 Discover more research, guides, and training for Bangladeshi educators at: www.ebtd.education

🎙️ Research Bites — small bites, big evidence, real classrooms.

🎯 Key Takeaways – Boss or Colleague? Transforming Leadership for Real Collaboration

1️⃣ Collaboration is limited and surface-level
Most secondary teachers in Dhaka reported collaboration only at the lowest levels — casual chats and quick problem-solving. Deep professional work like co-planning, peer observation, or reflective inquiry is rare due to workload and culture.

2️⃣ Time and workload are major barriers
Teachers described “ceaseless” schedules with little or no protected time for professional dialogue. Without structured opportunities, collaboration becomes an optional extra rather than a professional norm.

3️⃣ “Autonomous isolation” has become the default
Teachers often work alone not by choice, but as a coping strategy. Limited trust, fear of judgment, and hierarchical attitudes reinforce isolation and discourage open sharing.

4️⃣ Leadership style determines the climate
Where leaders acted as “bosses,” collaboration suffered. Authoritarian, top-down management created fear and competition. Transformational leaders, by contrast, built trust through observation, feedback, and shared decision-making.

5️⃣ Transformational leadership changes everything
The most effective headteachers created structured collaboration:

• Encouraging peer observation and feedback

• Forming subject and student clubs to promote joint work

• Ensuring teachers returning from training shared their learning

• Leading with transparency and equality

6️⃣ Policy and training must tackle attitudes, not just structures
Collaboration needs to be embedded in both pre-service and in-service training. Leadership development should explicitly address ego, hierarchy, and the mindset barriers that block collective growth.

7️⃣ Every teacher can lead from their classroom
Transformational leadership isn’t limited to headteachers. Every teacher can model collaboration, share practice, and build micro-cultures of trust within their own teams and subjects.

📘 Read the full study:
School Leadership Approach to Teacher Collaboration – European Journal of Educational Management (2025)

**** Welcome to the deep dive and uh specifically to research bites. This is your quick way, you know, to chew over some big ideas from education evidence. If you’re a teacher, maybe a school leader or just really committed to professional growth in Bangladesh, well, this deep dive is definitely for you. Our whole mission here is simple. Take one important piece of research and break it down. Make it clear, uh, classroom ready, small bites of big evidence, basically tools you can hopefully use straight away. So, today we’re zoning in on something really vital. It’s the connection between um teacher collaboration and the role sometimes a pretty restrictive role of school leadership. We’re looking specifically at secondary schools in Bangladesh using a well a significant qualitative study from 2025 that gives us a real feel for the ground level challenges.

**** That’s right. And this study it really focused geographically on the DACA district. They did these in-depth semistructured interviews, six secondary teachers and importantly they got a mix public schools, private, even the revenue high schools. The key thing about the method was looking at current collaboration practices but through the lens of uh what’s called transformational leadership. Okay. And you know let’s just put the core finding right out there because it really sets the scene. The study found a pretty stark scarcity of teachers collaborative functions just not happening much. And that was tied directly to well insignificant leadership support. The researcher actually talks about this orthodoxy of leadership kind of holding things back.

**** That phrase orthodoxy of leadership. Wow that sounds uh heavy like a really fixed mindset maybe built on hierarchy. Exactly. It suggests a deeply ingrained traditional approach. So our goal then for you listening is to unpack that to look at the constraints you might be facing every single day. Maybe it’s lack of time maybe lack of trust and figure out what needs to shift both for you individually and maybe at the institutional level too. Okay. So let’s start with the ideal. What should collaboration look like versus what this study actually found?

**** Well, globally we know Collaboration is just essential, isn’t it? Yeah. When teachers work together in what people call professional learning communities or PLC’s. It’s not just, you know, a nice extra. It genuinely improves how the school functions, boosts teaching skills, and yeah, ultimately it helps students succeed more. It really drives improvement. It’s the engine really. Right. So, to see what was actually going on in these DACA schools, the study used a framework, four conceptual forms of collaboration. Think of it like a scale from casual chats to really deep professional work.

**** Okay, what are they? So, at the sort of uh less intense end, you’ve got number one, storytelling and scanning for ideas, just, you know, casual chats in the staff room, sharing experiences, and number two, aid and assistance, helping each other out, giving advice often when a problem comes up, reactive mostly, right? Basic support. Exactly. And then you move into the stuff that needs more uh real professional commitment. Number three is sharing methods and materials. So, maybe planning units together or sharing resources that worked well. moderate interdependence they call it. And the fourth, the highest level is joint work. This is deep stuff. Uh critical inquiry, watching each other teach, reflecting together, all aimed at continuous improvement, high interdependence.

**** Okay, so that’s the ideal spectrum. And this is where it gets really interesting, maybe confirming what many of you listening already feel. What the research found about these four types in Bangladesh secondary schools was well, they were generally limited, especially those higher levels, very limited. The basically diagnosed that collaboration is often stuck at levels one and two that deeper sharing in joint work often missing and you see the constraint straight away with time don’t you there was that quote from teacher one

**** ah yes it it perfectly captured it teacher one said you know the actual scenario of our schools is that from morning to afternoon we take classes ceaselessly without rest our free time is very limited ceaselessly wow so if your free time is that squeezed staff room chat naturally defaults to, you know, quick personal updates, maybe some gossip. Exactly. Serious professional talk about teaching strategies or student issues. It feels like a luxury you just don’t have time for. So that lack of structured time, it just suffocates the potential for deeper collaboration right from the start.

**** And that leads straight into the next finding this inadequate mutual help and a concept the research highlighted called autonomous isolation. Autonomous isolation. That sounds like teachers choosing to work alone. Well, Yes and no. It’s not always by preference. Often it’s like by necessity or maybe even a defense mechanism. Teachers often end up working individually and that mutual aid. It mostly happens reactively like, “Okay, a new curriculum just landed. Got to figure this out, right? Forced collaboration almost

**** kind of.” Or maybe you seek out a colleague who just got back from some training because you need their specific input. It’s not proactive or planned. And this is where it gets tricky, isn’t it? The cultural stuff, the attitudes. The research talked about an ego factor. Yes, that came through quite strongly. Some junior teachers felt they just couldn’t push for collaboration because well, senior colleagues feel quite efficient, as one put it. Meaning the senior teachers felt they didn’t need help or saw asking for collaboration as a critique.

**** Potentially, yes. Or they just felt suggesting joint work implied their own methods weren’t good enough. It’s sensitive. And worse, sometimes enthusiastic teachers trying to collaborate were actually discouraged. Yeah, there were instances is where trying to start something collaborative led to being kind of pushed aside or maybe even subtly undermined by others. That just destroys psychological safety, doesn’t it? Why would you risk sharing your ideas or vulnerabilities if you might get shot down?

**** Exactly. So, you retreat into that isolation. Okay. So, we’ve got this like triple whammy working against collaboration, excessive workload squeezing time, a culture of autonomous isolation becoming the norm, and these really difficult attitudinal problems, ego, defensiveness, stopping trust from building. The whole system seems almost designed against it. Did they find any sharing of materials or joint work? Some, but very limited. Like sharing materials might happen around exam time because they have to work together on question papers or the syllabus. It’s structurally forced,

**** but day-to-day stuff, sharing lesson notes, planning together, observing each other teach. Generally, no. Not common practice according to these interviews. Okay. So, if time and attitude are problems at the teacher level, we need to look higher up. What’s the leadership doing or not doing. Let’s shift to that second research question. How do school leaders approach teacher collaboration? And the study measured this against uh transformational leadership ideas, right? Shared vision, teamwork, support.

**** Correct. And what they found, well, it was mostly a stark contrast to those transformational ideals. The default mode was often authoritarian, very traditional. It’s possibly a legacy from the colonial past, that kind of top- down instruction model. So, what did that look like? Like in terms of actual support for collaboration, well, most teachers didn’t feel their headmaster was a colleague. Teacher one again, they said, “The headmaster was a boss, not my colleague.” Boss, not colleague. That says a lot.

**** It does. It implies a lack of understanding perhaps from the leader about why collaboration is actually vital for improving teaching, not just some admin task. And that disconnect, it it’s amplified by the lack of real instructional feedback, isn’t it? Leaders not really visiting classes. that came up frequently. Yeah, leaders seldom observe teaching or offered pedagogical advice and worryingly. Yes, there was that instance mentioned where a leader apparently takes information about teachers from students instead of, you know, observing or talking to the teacher directly.

**** Oh wow, that’s incredibly damaging to trust. Surely absolutely. It shifts the dynamic from support to surveillance. If you think you’re being judged based on hearsay from students, you’re definitely not going to feel safe trying new collaborative things that involve risk. Never. And what about shared vision? Staff meetings often just formalities. According to the participants, decisions came from the top down. Teacher Six had that really telling quote. Remind me, you just said, “Boss is right.

**** Boss is right.” Yeah. That just shuts down any real input, doesn’t it? Why bother offering an opinion if the decision’s already made? Total demotivation. Precisely. And then you have the political and structural complexities layered on top. Right. The study mentioned some pretty divisive tactics. Yes. Things like heads using a hide and conquer strategy or a check and balance policy. Yeah. Basically playing teachers off against each other maybe through favoritism or uh financial perks. Actively preventing collaboration by fostering competition and distrust. That’s quite something.

**** It makes building any kind of collaborative culture almost impossible. And then there’s the issue of power structures like politically appointed leaders. Yeah. Leaders whose primary allegiance might be to external political figures or who feel more accountable to of the governing body than to their own teaching staff. This can really limit their ability or even their willingness to make decisions that genuinely support the teachers inside the school. So the big picture on leadership seems pretty bleak in these cases. The actions just didn’t line up with that transformational model creating a culture that well it actively resisted building those professional learning communities.

**** That was the overall finding. Yes. Okay, this is starting to sound a bit overwhelming like the whole system is stuck, but let’s not get bogged down. Let’s focus on the practical. Were there any bright spots, any aha moments in the research? You mentioned two teachers, teacher 3 and teacher 5, had positive experiences. What did that look like? Thankfully, yes. It wasn’t all negative. These two cases really do shine a light on what is possible. They show genuine transformational leadership managing to overcome those obstacles we just talked about. They really provide a kind of blueprint for what works even within the challenging Bangladesh. secondary school context.

**** Okay, good. Let’s focus on that. For everyone listening, these are the kinds of leadership behaviors you could advocate for or maybe even try to emulate yourselves. Whatever your role, what were they? Well, first, instructional support was key. The head mistress, in one case, wasn’t just managing schedules. She actually observed classes, especially new teachers, and gave real constructive feedback on teaching. And crucially, she actively encouraged experienced teachers to share what they knew with the noviceses made peer learning and expect supported thing.

**** That’s huge. Not just leaving it to chance. What else? Second, fostering collaboration wasn’t accidental. It was designed. Teacher 5 mentioned their headteer set up formal clubs, science club, math club, language club. And the key was teachers and students were required to work together in these clubs and the leader actively monitored them showing this joint work was important part of the school’s real mission. So making it structured and valued, not just an add-on if you have time makes sense.

**** Third was the systematic dissemination of training. This leader made it a point to instruct teachers who went on external courses to then run workshops back at school. Share the knowledge. Ah spreading the learning smart stops that knowledge getting stuck with just one person. Exactly. It combats that siloing effect. And the fourth point probably the foundation for all of this. Absolutely fundamental democratic accountability. This leader according to the teachers was really committed to making the school a role model. They were described as being equal to all teachers. transparent and making sure everyone felt genuinely welcome to voice opinions in meetings.

**** That feeling of safety, of being heard, that dissolves the ego issues and the need for isolation, doesn’t it’s a bedrock. It creates the trust needed for everything else. So, what’s fascinating here then is seeing how transformational leadership isn’t magic. It directly builds those collectivistic beliefs. Exactly. These positive examples show it clearly. When leaders set clear goals for teaching, provide real organizational support and crucially act democratically to build trust. Collaboration isn’t just possible. It starts to flourish naturally.

**** It replaces that reactive top- down culture with something much more dynamic focused on continuous improvement together. That’s the potential. Okay. So, bringing this all together for you the teacher or the leader listening in Bangladesh. Y what does this mean for actually moving things forward getting past this limited reality? The research had some clear recommendations, right? It did. As Essentially, reform needs to happen on two main fronts. First, at the policy level, we need to get collaboration properly embedded in training both inservice for current teachers and leaders and pre-ervice for those entering the profession. And this training can’t just be about management skills. It needs to explicitly tackle attitudes, challenge that professional ego, the tendency towards isolation, and actually develop collaborative skills.

**** So, changing mindsets and building practical skills through policy and training. What’s the second level? That’s the institution. level. Yeah. Inside the schools themselves, leaders really need to consciously shift away from those top down authoritarian habits that prop up the orthodoxy. They need to actively design planned, structured opportunities for collaboration, things like peer observation, joint lesson planning, monitoring those clubs. It needs to be built into the daily schedule.

**** Make it part of the job, expected and accounted for, not just a nice to have if there’s a spare moment. Exactly. It can’t be a casual afterthought anymore. Leaders need to move from just managing routines to actively facilitating teacher learning and collective problem solving become intellectual stimulators. Okay, so policy changes and institutional changes led by transformed leadership that brings us to our final thought. Something provocative for you to take away and think about. The study makes this really important point near the end. We focus a lot on the headteacher, the official leader, but it says not only the school head but also teachers are the leaders of their respective classroom platforms.

**** Mhm. Leadership isn’t just positional, right? So if transformational leadership is fundamentally about inspiring people, about exceeding expectations, how can you, whatever your formal title, apply these ideas right now? How can you start to motivate and intellectually stimulate the students, yes, but also the colleagues you work with every single day? Maybe starting small right there inside your own classroom platform to push for more structure, more collaboration in your immediate sphere. That’s a powerful thought. Change You can start anywhere.

**** Absolutely. We really encourage you to take these insights, chew them over, and see how you might turn your own corner of the school into more of a beacon for professional collaboration.