Distributed Leadership: A Case of Theory Following

Practice?

CCEAM ConferenceCyprus

Professor Alma Harris

Leadership and Organisational Development

What type of leadership generates, supports and sustains organisational improvement and change?

We Know

School leadership has significant effects on student learning second only to the effects of the quality of curriculum and teachers’ instruction

(Leithwood, et al 2004)

But what type of leadership?

• Ethical• Emotional• Spiritual• Change• Inclusive• Distributed

But

• The empirical base to accompany, these labels, if it does exist, is less than robust or convincing.

Distributed Leadership: Conceptual Confusion

• Participative• Shared• Collaborative• Democratic• Diffuse

3 Frames: Different messages

Theoretical Empirical

Normative

DistributedLeadership

Two Aims

• To look at these frames separately and to explore what they each tell us about distributed leadership.

• To identify what forms of research are needed to extend the knowledge base about distributed leadership practice.

The Theoretical Frame

Distributed Cognition

Activity Theory

Resnick,1991.

• Cognition is not a matter of mental capacity because sense making and connections are established through the situation or the context in which it takes place (3)

Cognition in the WildHutchins, 1995:6.

• Cognitive unit of analysis from the individual person to the team.

• The team as a computational and cognitive system.

Cognition in the WildHutchins, 1995:6.

• It is possible for a team to organize its behavior in an appropriate sequence without there being a global script or plan anywhere in the system.

Distributed Leadership implies (Spillane, 2002: 20).

• social distribution of multiple leaders

• inter-dependency rather than dependency

Distributed Leadership Theory (Spillane et al, 2004;28)

• It offers a new meta lens for thinking about leadership practice- by mobilizing a language and a set of analytical tools for reflecting on that activity.

Distributed Leadership Theory (Spillane et al, 2004;28)

• We propose the distributed leadership framework as a sensing device for registering the complex practice of school leadership.

• It is a frame informed by practice

AmbiguitySpillane et al 2004: 29

• a way of thinking about leadership practice and that it has that it has no prescriptive power.

• it can be used as a diagnostic instrument that helps practitioners approach their work in new ways.

Tensions

• Theory borrowing - imposition of a theory from one discipline to another

• How far distributed cognition translates into a theory of distributed leadership.

• Distributed cognition is a descriptive rather than a prescriptive theory.

• Education is a discipline that presses for diagnosis, application and prescription.

The Empirical Frame

Direct Evidence- relatively limited

Most of it centred on ‘leadership plus’ aspect

Disconnected from theory- not linked to theory building studies

Evidence from other fields of investigation tend to suggest positive outcomes

Spillane et al 2001

• Our preliminary analysis suggests that the work of leading and managing the schoolhouse is indeed distributed, not only involving multiple designated leaders and informal leaders but also demonstrated by the prevalence of the co-performance of work

Other evidence

• Teacher Leadership• School Improvement• Organisational Development• Business

Key Findings

• Teacher leadership impacts directly upon the quality of instruction

• Collaborative cultures that share leadership activities are likely to improve

• Both lateral and vertical forms of leadership are required to maximise organisational growth

Level 5 Leadership(Collins 2001; 38)

• Leaders who developed other leaders, distributed leadership and shared power.

Lashway (2004)

• The research base for distributed leadership is still embryonic. While there is considerable theory, we have relatively little empirical knowledge.

We don’t know

• Whether certain patterns of distribution are more effective in schools than others?

• Whether and how distributed leadership impacts upon organisational change and development?

Two Studies

• Distributing Leadership to Make Schools Smarter (Leithwood et al, 2006)

• Distributed Leadership and School Improvement: Exploring the Relationship (Harris and Muijs, 2006)

Leithwood et al (2006)

• School leadership has a greater influence on schools and pupils when it is widely distributed

• Some patterns of distribution are more effective than others

Effects of Different patterns of Leadership Distribution

(Leithwood et al 2006)

• Schools in the highest quintile of student achievement attributed relatively high levels of influence to all sources of leadership (i.e. school teams, parents and students).

Harris and Muijs (2004;2006)

• Extended• Enhanced• Emerging• Restricted

Principles of Distributed Leadership

(Harris and Muijs 2004:6)

Continual Emergence: distributed leadership is characterized by the constant appearance and/or emergence of leaders, which are not necessarily in a single location, but instead, are dispersed in time and geographical space.

Participation based on contingent status: Participation by team members hinges on organizational need. Teams and communities of practice are open and inclusive, rather than rigid.

Formally neutral: The individuals are task-oriented but have no formal status.

Instrumental autonomy: Team members are able to act with autonomy when their actions are perceived to help bring the organization to the realization of its goals.

Capacity Building Individuals may assume leadership for the time that their specific skills, talents, or other attributes are needed, and then may relinquish leadership when that moment of need is over.

Characteristics of an Organization with Distributed Leadership

(Harris and Muijs 2004:6)• Individuals perceive themselves as stakeholders:

All individual team members are willing and able to assume leadership positions, when needed.

The organizational goals are disaggregated: The tasks needed to achieve the mission can be broken down into component parts and distributed to the teams best able to achieve the tasks.

Distributed roles and tasks: They take place in different time zones, places, and under widely divergent conditions.

Characteristics of an Organization with Distributed Leadership

(Harris and Muijs 2004:6)• Leaders have expert rather than formal authority

Leadership shifts according to need; the leader role generally resides with the person who has expert authority for the designated task.

Vision is a unifying forceA clearly articulated vision which is equally shared among all members exerts incredible cohesive force. It is what allows progress to be made without diverging or going off course.

Collaborative teams formed for specific purposes The teams have fluid membership, which changes according to the task, the roles, and the requisite talent.

Communities of practice emerge Although collaborative activities tend to disband, the communities of practice maintain their affiliation long after the task, and often connect with each other in order to brainstorm about future needs and potential collaborative configurations.

Normative Frame

• Changing structure of schooling

• Increased workload on formal leaders

• Complexity of the leadership task

Paradox 1(Harris and Muijs, 2004)

• Without stable, consistent leadership in schools distributed leadership will be incredibly fragile.

Paradox 2(Leithwood et al, 2006)

• Distributing leadership to others does not seem to result in less demand for leadership from those in formal leadership positions

Challenges

• No generalisable practices

• No distinction between good or bad practices

• Theory has no predictive power

Closing the gap

Theory Development

• We urgently need empirical studies of distributed leadership practice to test, refine and develop the theory.

Methodological Issues

• Which actors constitute leadership when it is distributed?

• What aspects of leadership constitute distributed leadership?

• What form should the collection of evidence take?

• How do we trace the relationship between distributed leadership and organisational/student outcomes?

The Long Haul: Two Vital Tests

• Has ‘Distributed Leadership Theory’ moved on?

• Can we predict the impact of different forms of distribution on organisational outcomes?

Optimism

alma.harris@warwick.ac.uk

• Harris, A. (2005) Leading or Misleading: Distributed Leadership and School Improvement Journal of Curriculum Studies Volume 37 No 3 p255-267 ISSN 0022-0272

• Harris, A. (2006) Opening up the Black Box of Leadership Practice: Taking a Distributed Perspective International Journal of Educational Administration