ABSTRACT
The earliest written record of distributed leadership is the counsel to Moses: “This is too heavy for thou cannot bear it alone,” (Exodus 18: 17-18). It is a counsel with a strong contemporary relevance whether in a business or in an educational context. The belief in the power of the charismatic leader to single-handedly turn around an ailing business or a failing school has been undermined by too many examples of heroic failure (Berliner, 2001; Bevan, 2002, MacBeath et al., 2007). Assumptions as to what may have served well in the past have been confronted by accelerating global change which challenges conventional wisdom about the very nature of institutional life. As Alvin Toffler famously wrote, it is not simply the rate of change that is different but that the nature of change itself is changing. Change is the constant and demands a rethinking not simply of what leaders are or do but of what we understand by the very notion of leadership itself.
