DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP

Definition
- is a conceptual and analytical approach to understanding how the
work of leadership takes place among the people and in context of a
complex organization.
DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP
• Characteristics
• primarily concerned with the practice of leadership
rather than specific leadership roles or
responsibilities. It equates with shared, collective
and extended leadership practice that builds the
capacity for change and improvement.
• Focus on collaboration, shared purpose,
responsibility and recognition of leadership
irrespective of role or position
• Distributed leadership means mobilising leadership
expertise at all levels in the school in order to
generate more opportunities for change and to
build the capacity for improvement.
• Was a utilized as a catalyst for curriculum changes
Theory of Distributed Leadership
• Social or shared leadership approaches often still see leadership as
actions done by individuals, just done in cooperation with others.
Taking a distributed perspective, in contrast, draws on
the theory of distributed cognition to understand leadership is an
emergent property of the system.
Factors
• the belief in leadership teams where belief in the power of one gives
way to belief in the power of everyone
• increased demand for leaders as schools become more complex
places to manage and lead
• creating pools of talent from which we can grow tomorrow’s leaders
Advantages Distributed Leadership
• increase employee engagement and commitment, due to a sense of
collective responsibility for the organisation’s success
• encourage sharing of ideas and help generate new solutions to old
problems
• encourage more effective and responsive decision-making
• help to develop a greater sense of openness and trust in the organisation
• assist succession planning as it can help organisations to spot and nurture
leadership potential in individuals from an early stage
• encourage better teamwork at all levels of the organisation
• give people a more flexible and adaptable approach to work
• improve knowledge-sharing and learning inside and across departments as
different groups of people work together
Five Principles successful distributed leadership models
Collegiality and Gender
• Women invariably form the majority in primary school and some have an
all-female staff. There is also a much higher proportion of women leaders
in primary schools than in secondary shools or colleges.
• Al-khalifa(1989,p.89) claims that women adopt different management
styles from men with a much greater emphasis on collaboration, co-
operation and other ‘feminie’ behaviours.
• These styles, which are compatible with collegiality, are contrasted with
‘masculine’ aspects of management.
• Women managers pinpoint aspects of management practice which they
find dysfunctional – namely aggressive competitive behaviours, an
emphasis on control rather than negotiation and collaboration and pursuit
of competition rather than shared problem solving’(ibid.)
• Nias, Southworth and Yeomans (1989) refer to examples of successful
collaborative behavior involving both women and men
• Colemen (1994) presents evidence that women managers in
education tend to be more democratic than men, demonstrating
qualitis of warmth, empathy and cooperation.