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This chapter explores middle leadership identity through the real-world accounts of how two middle leaders construct and develop their leadership identity and how this impacts the way their middle leadership is practiced. Leadership identity, an internal narrative of oneself as a leader which is practised professionally in context, represents a concept that is best understood as being unique to an individual, enduring over time, and a consequence of human experiences. Middle leadership is often the first promotion for teachers from teacher to leader and, as such, how middle leaders perceive themselves as a leader and how this formative process of leadership identity underpins middle leaders’ practices can make a significant impact on a leader’s decision making, professional relationships, behaviours, and actions. This chapter is co-authored by two researchers and two middle leaders with the intention of understanding middle leader identity development and its influence on middle leadership practices. Using interviews, middle leaders’ stories of identity were co-composed and re-storied to construct each middle leader’s narrative. This chapter concludes with a discussion on the influences of identity for middle leaders and considerations for leadership development.

Instructional leadership is a school leadership approach that emphasizes improving teaching and learning. This study explores how school middle leaders – teachers holding leadership positions in schools, who are responsible for a particular area or discipline of the school's curriculum – fulfill their instructional leadership role.

The participants in this qualitative study were 24 middle leaders (subject coordinators) in elementary schools in Israel. Data collection was based on semi-structured interviews, and data analysis included three stages: sorting, coding and categorizing.

The current study points to three main characteristics of instructional leadership in school middle leaders: leading by expertise; leading by collaboration; and leading by example.

At present, there is only scant literature on instructional leadership in school middle leaders. This study suggests that principals and middle leaders, who work closely with each other to provide instructional leadership in their schools, do so in different ways.