Teacher Leadership Between Policy Mandate and School Enactment: Influence Under Retained Authority

This study examines how teacher leadership emerged within the enactment of centrally mandated policies in six Qatari public schools. It presents a focused analysis of interviews with 22 teachers, six academic vice-principals, and six principals, originally collected for a broader policy-enactment study. Participants described influential positional and non-positional teachers who translated mandates, adapted requirements to classroom realities, mobilisedd endorsement, and channeled resistance. Principals retained formal authority, while academic vice-principals operationalized policy and regulated participation. The findings conceptualize this arrangement as distributed policy influence under retained authority, demonstrating how teacher leadership shapes local enactment without possessing formal policymaking or decision-making authority.