Distributed Leadership According to the Evidence

Empirical work on how leadership is distributed more and less successfully in schools is rare. This chapter presents a case for distributing leadership in particular ways that can have positive outcomes for students in a school improvement context in which varying success was evident. Grounding the theory in this practice context led to the identification of some risks and benefits of distributing leadership and to the challenge of some key concepts presented in earlier theorizing about leadership and its distribution. Concepts related to distributed leadership discussed in the chapter include embedding vision in activities and the social distribution of task enactment. Issues addressed within the latter concept include boundary spanning, relationships between leaders and followers and the use of artefacts.