There is no shortage of studies on leadership in education. What is often lacking, however, is nuance regarding exactly how that leadership operates. This article by Nassir and Benoliel is interesting because it attempts precisely that: not only to examine whether leadership has an effect, but also how.

In their research, both researchers start from a recognisable problem: teachers considering leaving, and teams that either do or do not believe they can make a difference together. The latter, collective teacher efficacy (CTE), has long been a kind of holy grail in school improvement and a theme I am working on myself, or rather, the student variant. The questions are therefore: what makes CTE stronger, and what keeps people on board?

To answer this question, the authors examine transformational leadership. This is a type of leadership that focuses on vision, support, and intellectual challenge. No surprise: where these are more strongly present, we see more collective teacher efficacy and less intention to leave. This aligns nicely with previous studies.

It becomes more interesting when they look at why this is the case. That is where job autonomy comes in. The idea is that teachers have the space to make their own decisions about their work, their approach, and their class. And there you see the first clear trend. More transformational leadership goes hand in hand with greater autonomy. And that autonomy, in turn, is linked to stronger collective teacher efficacy. Teams that are given space seem to function better. That also sounds logical, and it is.

But then comes a further nuance. That same autonomy appears to play no role in the intention to leave. In other words, more space in your job apparently does not necessarily mean you will stay. The effect of leadership on staying or leaving, therefore, follows a different path.

This suggests that we may be confusing two different mechanisms. For collective processes such as collaboration and a shared belief in impact, structural factors such as autonomy play an important role. For individual decisions such as staying or leaving, relational factors seem to carry more weight. Think of recognition, support, and the feeling of being seen.

That also aligns with what we see more broadly. Anyone who has ever changed jobs rarely did so solely because they lacked sufficient autonomy. Much more often, it is about context, relationships, and perspective. I confess, I had assessed this differently.

Does that mean autonomy is not important, given the self-determination theory? Certainly not. It is clearly linked to how teams function and to the quality of the professional climate. But it is not a miracle cure for retention, for keeping teachers.

As always, there are caveats. The study is cross-sectional, so we cannot claim true causality. Everything is based on self-reporting. And the context is specific: Arab schools in Israel, with a rather hierarchical structure. That makes the findings interesting, but also not easily generalizable. Nevertheless, I believe the core remains valid. If you want to work on strong teams as a school leader, giving space helps. But if you want people to stay, you will have to do more than that. Then it is about relationships, trust, and recognition.

Not everything that works for the team automatically works for the individual. And vice versa. That seems obvious, but we often forget it.