ABSTRACT
Leadership can be conceptualized and studied as both an individual phenomenon and as an organizational phenomenon. The former orients us toward an analysis of the beliefs, actions, personal traits, and influence of individuals recognized by others as leaders within particular organizational contexts. The organizational perspective suggests that leadership in any particular setting is unlikely to be constituted in the actions and influence of a solitary individual. Consequently, an understanding of leadership requires us to examine the variety of leadership sources, beliefs, actions, interactions, and influences recognized by participants in those settings. Therein lies the conceptual rationale for interest in the distribution of leadership practice and influence in schools. The findings reported and discussed here are based on a multi-site case study analysis of patterns of leadership distribution and their relationship to student learning in schools.1 The aim was to describe the distribution of leadership in a set of schools selected for variability on a survey
measure of overall leadership distribution, to analyze the distribution patterns observed in relation to concepts of leadership distribution proposed in the literature, and to consider how our findings affirm, contradict, or provide additional insight into current conceptualizations of distributed leadership. We also aimed to explore the relationship between the leadership distribution patterns in these schools and student learning processes and outcomes. In this chapter we orient our analysis and discussion of the findings to the roles that principals play in the patterns of leadership distribution examined from varied vantage points: school leadership overall, school goals, and core leadership practices – setting directions, developing people, structuring the workplace, managing the instructional program (Leithwood et al., 2006a). Our findings highlight the prominence of principals in determining alternative patterns of leadership distribution at the school level and in relation to specific improvement goals and initiatives. Formal organizational structures were not necessarily congruent with the actual distribution of leadership sources and influence reported by school personnel. The findings also reveal that variable patterns of distributed leadership may be enacted in the same school. This variation is associated with the principal’s use of their own and other sources of professional expertise for key focuses for improvement, and with the principal’s approach to school goal setting in the context of state and school district policies and processes. The analysis suggests that school goals that target student learning provide more scope for leadership distribution and coordination than goals that focus on implementation of specific programs and practices. The links between distinct patterns of leadership distribution and student achievement, however, appear to be more indirect than direct.
