ABSTRACT
The chapters in this volume, as a whole, portray an area of study in an adolescent stage of development. It is an area no longer naively confident of its own value; greater distribution of leadership is not likely to be the answer to what ails schools, for example (although it seems likely to be a part of that answer). Furthermore, it is a field, struggling with complex identity issues. How can concepts of distributed leadership be distinguished from, say, models of participatory leadership or the behaviors associated with professional learning communities? It is a field striving for some measure of independence while, at the same time (and sometimes reluctantly), acknowledging the important influence of its parentage. After all, it is those long-studied leadership practices that are being distributed, along with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions on which they are based. Hierarchy still seems an essential property of organizations for purposes of coordination (and possibly direction-setting, as well). Influence still lies at the heart of what leadership entails. And the concept of leadership still depends on the concept of followership to have any meaning at all.
