What is a Teacher Leader?

Roland S. Barth's Teacher Leader (1990) describes the powerful role that teacher leaders play in our educational system. All teachers are called upon to fulfill the leadership role that each individual has the ability to achieve. Barth believes that all teachers have leadership qualities that can be extracted for the purpose of improving one's school or increasing pupil performance.
An interesting fact presented by Barth was that in a study of one thousand schools "in high-performing schools (those with few discipline problems and high pupil achievement), decision making and leadership are significantly more democratic. Teachers are more involved and influential in establishing discipline, selecting textbooks, designing curriculum, and even choosing their colleagues than are teachers in low-performing schools."
Everyone would benefit from teacher leadership implementation within a school system. Students would have addition role models who could support the current administration. Teacher leaders could also assume some of the roles that might ordinarily be handled by the building principal. A teacher leader has the ability to wear a variety of hats. Just as teacher leadership affords opportunity, there are also obstacles. For some teachers the commitment of time and their lives already bustling is the reason for their hesitation to take on the role. For others it is dealing with their colleagues and the repercussions that would come from the resistance they would receive from their fellow peers. What we as educators need to examine is would the benefits of our role as teacher leader make a difference in our school community? If the answer is yes then to what degree would this role cause me any personal conflict? Can this conflict be worked out?
I look forward to being a teacher leader in my school community and in many ways I already am. I need to learn to be more vocal about my thoughts and feelings. That is my personal goal for teacher leadership. I am an active member of my school community and I have always been an "I'll do that" person. I need to bring the vocal piece into my role of leadership.