Schools are increasingly complex organisations and research on leadership in schools is capturing this complexity (Harris & Jones, 2017, 2022). Whilst leadership from principals remains important and continues to be studied (Grissom, et al. 2021research on teacher and middle leadership has accelerated in recent years (Arar & Oplatka, 2022;De Nobile, 2021 ; Harris & Jones, 2017; Lipscombe et al. 2023; Schott et al., 2020). Whilst there is considerable research about the work of early career teachers (Watt & Richardson, 2023), and teacher preparation programs are beginning to include leadership training (Acquaro, 2019), there is almost no empirical research focussed on the leadership work of early career teachers. Given the current Australian, and now global, growing teacher and principal shortages, is timely to consider the leadership work and expectations, as well as the leadership demands on early career teachers.

This study sought to explore and answer the following research questions:

Main research question:

• How do teachers in their first to four years of teaching perceive and act upon the leadership work, expectations and demands placed on them?

Sub-questions:

• How have early career teachers enacted leadership in response to these demands?
• What other leadership work have early career teachers done?
• How were early career teachers prepared and supported to meet the leadership demands?
• How has their leadership work influenced their career aspirations?

This study sought to understand the leadership demands new teachers face through their first four years of their teaching career through exploring what these educators are asked to do, and actually do, in terms of leadership practices, and any influence this may have on their career aspirations. This study employed a qualitative methodology where data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews of 20 recent graduates of teacher education programs from one Australian university in Melbourne. Individual interviews lasting 45-60 minutes were conducted online, transcribed and later coded to build thematic understandings. Early-career teachers were chosen through purposeful selection, with the conditions being that they were in their first to fourth year of their teaching career and currently employed in a school. Participants represented a diverse range of attributes such as sex, age, years in the profession, school system, school type, employment status and whether they held a leadership role in the school.

Findings from the study highlight three important external antecedents that play in early-career teachers’ interest towards leadership roles, namely: previous leadership experience, personal characteristics and any educational leadership studies as part of their initial teacher training. Once employed in schools, if and how they take on leadership roles appears to be directly affected by a number of demands associated to their roles, such as the type of leadership demands imposed by the school, the level of support they receive together with the culture and climate of the school. There also seem to be a strong relationship between the leadership demands and teachers’ employment status (e.g., permanent or fixed-term). Consequently, the way in which these demands converged with the external antecedents determined to an extent their job satisfaction and their personal outlook towards remaining in the profession and their likelihood to seek leadership roles in the future. Finally, findings also revealed that by the time early-career teachers (ECTs) were in their third or fourth year, they had already been asked to apply for a formal leadership role, or were already acting in one. As a result of fragile work security in the sector, those ECTs who had been or were on contracts described how they accepted leadership roles in the hope that this would lead to more secure and permanent work. The study has also captured the leadership work that ECTs self-initiated as part of their desire to support students and their schools. A new model has been designed to understand the leadership demands on early-career teachers.

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