Interest in education in entrepreneurship has increased in Sweden as well as in the rest of the European countries and the Western Countries. The importance of good leadership for teaching and learning is highlighted in practice as well as in research (e.g. Hynes, 1996; Harris & Muijs, 2005; Jones & Iredale, 2010), but there are few studies which explicit focus on entrepreneurial leadership skills in education. The model of teachers’ leadership, means according to Harris and Muijs (2005),”creating the conditions in which people work together and learn together, where they construct and refine meaning, leading to a shared purpose or set of goals” (p. 17).  This study highlights central aspects and characteristics of entrepreneurial teachers.  One central area in today’s debate on school is what students learn or not learn in school. How well they are suited for a life in a changing society and how education can be supportive. International as well as in in the European Union and on a national Swedish basis, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial learning is promoted as a way to arm our young people. Never the less there are challenges for teachers (as well as principals) in implementing an educational strategy based on central concepts in entrepreneurial teacher leadership.

The entrepreneurial teacher is often equated with an enthusiastic individual who is not afraid of breaking old habitual patterns and is a driving force for change (Johannisson & Madsén, 1997; Røe Ødegård, 2012). The entrepreneurial teacher acts as a guide more than a director and has the courage to give their students freedom that is required for them to be able to develop their entrepreneurial skills. OECD (1989) points out the importance of “shift of power”, in teachers’ relationship to the students, which means that the teacher should give free rein and has more trust to the students’ willingness and ability to use their own capacity. The interaction between teachers and students highlight problems of how to make creative questions to help students to develop entrepreneurial skills such as identifying possibilities and to make students able to think by themes selves and use more learning arenas than the classroom. The teaching and learning culture will then contain a culture with many questions and answers instead of a focus on the “right answer”. It is also of importance that the teacher visualizes and assesses the leaning processes (Falk-Lundqvist, Hallberg, Leffler, & Svedberg, 2011).  It is in many ways about teachers own learning about learning (cf Timperley, 2012).  However, entrepreneurial teachers are also in some studies described as “enthusiastic individuals”.  They are known as people with a strong driving force but also as individuals who are used to go their own ways (Leffler, 2006).

On policy level, entrepreneurial teachers are described in the report Entrepreneurship Education - Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor (European Commission, 2011) with a lot of skills, such as positive attitude, passionate about what they are doing and confident in their teaching. They are also able to listen attentively and can pick up and put to use new ideas.   These qualities are according to the European Commission unlikely to be found in one individual alone. Rather it is more realistic to expect to find such qualities distributed across a range of individuals. Is it possible to identify teachers with certain skills and attribute, and identify them as entrepreneurial teachers?  If, so, what can we learn from these teachers as leaders in the classroom?

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