Distributed School
Leadership
Tomorrow’s schools will need new forms of leadership. The old hierarchical
models of leadership simply do not fit any longer. We need to develop new
leaders at all levels of the system if we are serious about sustaining improvement
and change. But how do we go about this?
This book focuses on the why, how and what of distributed leadership by
offering a practical insight into what it looks like in schools. It argues that our
new system leaders are already in schools and that the main challenge is to
develop them and maximise their collective capacity to make a difference.
Drawing on the ‘Developing Leaders Programme’, which aims to develop
young leaders in schools, it provides practical examples and case-study evidence
of distributed leadership in action. The main aims of the book are to:
• provide a clear account of distributed leadership in schools
• offer evidence about its positive impact on organisational and individual
learning
• give case-study exemplars and practical illustrations of how distributed
leadership works in practice.
The book also considers the leadership of networks and the federations. It looks
at how lateral capacity is built and the part distributed leadership plays in
generating leadership capacity within and between schools. It will be of interest
to head teachers, aspiring school leaders, teachers and educational professionals.
Alma Harris is Professor of Educational Leadership at the London Centre for
Leadership in Learning, Institute of Education, University of London, UK. She is
also Associate Director of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.
Leading School Transformation Series
Series Editors:
Alma Harris
University of London, UK
Claire Mathews
Head of Leadership programmes, Specialist Schools and
Academies Trust
Sue Williamson
Director of Leadership and Innovation, Specialist Schools and
Academies Trust
The Leading School Transformation series brings together leading
researchers and writers to identify the latest thinking about new and
innovative leadership practices that transform schools and school
systems. The books have been written with educational professionals
in mind, and draw upon the latest international research and evidence
to offer new ways of thinking about leadership, provide examples of
leadership in practice and identify concrete ways of transforming
leadership for schools and school systems in the future.
Titles in the series
Raising the Stakes
From improvement to transformation in the reform of schools
Brian J. Caldwell and Jim M. Spinks
Leadership Mindsets
Innovation and learning in the transformation of schools
Linda Kaser and Judy Halbert
Distributed School
Leadership
Developing tomorrow’s leaders
Alma Harris
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN, UK
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2008 Alma Harris
Typeset in Garamond3 by
RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Harris, Alma, 1958–
Distributed school leadership : developing tomorrow’s leaders /
Alma Harris.
p. cm.
1. Educational leadership. 2. School improvement programs.
3. Educational equalization. I. Title.
LB2831.6.H37 2008
371.2’07—dc22 2008003331
ISBN10: 0–415–41957–3 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–415–41958–1 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–41957–4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–41958–1 (pbk)
For Claire
Contents
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgement xi
Foreword xiii
1 Leadership in a changing world 1
2 Leadership in crisis 16
3 Distributed leadership 28
4 Distributed leadership: the theory 36
5 Distributed leadership: the evidence 42
6 Distributed leadership in context 55
7 Distributed leadership practice: within schools 66
8 Distributed leadership practice:
between and outside schools 101
9 Distributed leadership and
knowledge creation 115
10 Future leadership 139
References 159
Index 171
Illustrations
1.1 Percentage of children living in ‘relative’ poverty 2
7.1 Model of distributed leadership 74
7.2 Traditional leadership model 87
7.3 Five colleges 88
7.4 New management structure 92
7.5 Current leadership structure 96
7.6 Current leadership structure II 97
8.1 Model of distributed leadership operating
outside school 109
9.1 Models of distribution 122
9.2 Capacity-building schools 135
Acknowledgement
I am very grateful to the head teachers and staff of all the case study
schools who gave their time so generously. I also acknowledge the
Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) and the National
College for School Leadership (NCSL) who funded the research pro-
jects that provided some of the data about distributed leadership
practices.
I am particularly grateful to David Crossley, Tom Clarke and
Janet Aldridge for allowing me to draw upon the cases in the
‘Beyond Workforce Reform’ Project, and to Emma Sims of the SSAT
and Gillian Ireson of the NCSL for allowing me to draw on the ‘Deep
Leadership’ work. I also acknowledge Professor Andy Hargreaves and
the ‘Beyond Expectations’ project team.
Thanks to Dean Fink for providing such valuable feedback on the
penultimate draft and to Jim Spillane for his friendship and intel-
lectual contribution.
Finally, I am grateful to Anna Clarkson and Lucy Wainwright of
Routledge for their support for the iNET/SSAT leadership series, and
to my co-editors Sue Williamson and Clare Mathews.
Foreword
Fads are commonplace in education, especially in school leadership
and management. Moreover, faddism is as common in the halls of
academia as in the schoolhouse. In an effort to be seen to be doing
something new, scholars, policymakers, and practitioners don the
latest fashion. Efforts over the past decade or so to articulate and
develop a distributed perspective on school leadership and manage-
ment are certainly in vogue but may turn out as just another edu-
cational fad, adopted by school leadership scholars and practitioners
but soon discarded. Time will tell. In the meantime, books such as
this one that engage the field in a critical dialogue about what it
means to take a distributed perspective are the best methods we have
of stop the tide of faddism.
Theoretically anchored, Harris takes a functional or pragmatic
approach to distributed leadership. Looking at what distributed
leadership looks like on the ground in real schools, she examines
with concrete examples how a distributed perspective on leadership
might make a difference for learning at both the individual and
organisational levels. With rich examples from the trenches, the
pages that follow bring alive for the reader the entailments in practice
of taking a distributed perspective to leadership and management.
These views from the field not only offer glimpses of what is, but are
also evocative of what might be.
Attending to the broader socio-political context of shifting policy
environments, changing demographics, and an education apartheid
that increasingly separates the rich from the poor in terms of access
to knowledge, the book makes a convincing case for the need for
attention to school leadership and management. Tying these broader
environmental shifts with the ever challenging and more demanding
job of formally designated leaders, the book offers a convincing case
xiv Foreword
for serious attention to school leadership and its improvement.
Moreover, Harris argues convincingly that new tools are needed to
undertake that work. The various chapters not only make the case for
these tools, but also sketch some of their features and offer examples
of what they might look like on the ground in real schools.
Combing numerous literatures both within the field of education
and outside it, the book offers some fresh ideas on a familiar phe-
nomenon – school leadership and management. Connecting work on
distributed leadership to scholarship on organisational learning and
knowledge creation, the book points to the heart of school improve-
ment – knowledge, creation and diffusion in schools and school sys-
tems. The chapters offer helpful pointers as to how those interested
in improving school leadership might begin to think about how the
structure of schools, both actual and imagined structures, might
enable and constrain knowledge production and dissemination.
The attempt to imagine schools for the future is provocative. Of
course, time will be the judge of the durability of these ideas about
how schools might be reorganised. Imagining brave new worlds
is considerably easier than putting them into practice. But it is a
critical first step.
Jim Spillane
Chicago, USA
December 2007
Chapter 1
Leadership in a changing
world
As models of leadership shift from the organisational hierarchies
with leaders at the top to more distributed, shared networks, peo-
ple will need to be deeply committed to cultivating their capacity
to serve what’s seeking to emerge
(Senge et al, 2005:186)
Within each of the developed countries, including the United
States, average life expectancy is five, ten or even fifteen years
shorter for people living in the poorest areas compared to those
living in the richest
(Wilkinson, 2005:1).
In today’s climate of rapid change and increasingly high expectations,
effective leadership is needed more than ever. But the question is
what type of leadership? It is clear that change on such a massive
scale will demand new leadership practices but the precise forms of
leadership required to grapple with the complexities and challenges
of technological advancement and globalisation remain unclear. The
increasing integration of world economies through trade and finan-
cial transactions has created emerging market economies that are
more integrated and interdependent (Zhao, 2007). Economic global-
isation has outpaced the globalisation of politics and mindsets
(Stiglitz, 2006:25). The traditional economic boundaries between
countries are rapidly becoming less and less relevant. The global
economy is booming.
But globalisation has also become a crisis in many parts of the
world (Zhao, 2007:18). Despite increasing levels of wealth and pros-
perity around the globe, relative levels of poverty are higher than
2 Leadership in a changing world
ever before and the gaps between rich and poor are widening. As the
economic market place of the world is changing, in both developed
and less developed countries, there is an increasing disparity between
those who have high quality education and those who do not.
Although the wealth of the most affluent nations has soared, there
is a growing underclass of citizens living in poverty. In her book The
Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein (2007) asserts that poverty, misery and
human suffering are a necessary part of new ‘disaster’ capitalism. She
challenges how far the global free market has triumphed democratic-
ally and argues that America’s ‘free market’ policies have come to
dominate the world – through the exploitation of disaster-shocked
people and countries.
In his analysis of the relationship between poverty and educational
attainment, David Berliner (2005) highlights the fact that the United
States has the highest rate among industrialised countries of those that
are permanently poor. As the Figure 1.1 below shows, only Mexico
has a higher rate with the UK in fourth position with 19.8 per cent.
Figure 1.1 Percentage of children living in ‘relative’ poverty defined as house-
holds with income below 50 per cent of the national median income
(UNICEF, 1999, http://www.unicef.org/).
Leadership in a changing world 3
Berliner (2005) also points out that many of the wealthy countries,
like the USA and the UK, have few mechanisms to get people out of
poverty once they fall into it. So those who become impoverished
through illness, divorce, or job loss are likely to remain poor.
While the rich have become richer, the poor have become poorer.
Those who are well educated have access to the richest economic
system the world has ever known. For those who lack education, the
door of opportunity is ‘slammed shut’ (Barr and Parrett, 2007:7). As
Berliner (2005:15) argues, ‘poverty restricts the expression of generic
talent at the lower end of the socio-economic scale’. It is clear that
poverty limits life chances as well as educational achievement.
The moral imperative to address issues of poverty is clear, so is the
educational imperative. The gap between the educational attainment
of the poorest and the most affluent students is getting larger, even
though overall levels of performance may have increased. As Fullan
(2006:7) argues, we urgently need to ‘raise the economic bar and
close the gap between the richest and the poorest’. Clearly no one
would disagree. But what kind of education will be required to close
the gap, what kind of schools, what kind of leadership?
This book is primarily concerned with addressing the educational
apartheid that separates the rich from the poor so starkly in terms
of educational attainment. The book focuses particularly on school
leadership as one means of improving learning for all students in all
school settings. It argues that leadership is a powerful and important
force for change in schools and school systems.
As the McKinsey (2007:71) report noted:
School reforms rarely succeed without effective leadership both
at the level of the system and at the level of the individual
schools. There is not a single documented case of a school suc-
cessfully turning around its pupil achievement trajectory in
the absence of talented leadership. Similarly we did not find a
single school system which had been turned around that did not
possess sustained, committed and talented leadership.
The main challenge facing schools and school systems is how to
locate, develop and sustain committed and talented leadership. How
do we find the leaders of tomorrow and keep them in our schools and
school systems? How do we nurture, grow and develop broad-based
leadership capacity in our schools?
This book suggests that to identify and develop the leaders of
4 Leadership in a changing world
tomorrow is both urgent and necessary for system transformation. It
suggests that to release the leadership capability and capacity in our
schools we need to alter structures, redefine boundaries and remove
barriers that prevent broad-based involvement of the many rather
than the few in leadership. But it is more than just about changing
structures. The most effective schools and school systems invest in
developing leaders. They actively seek out leadership talent,1 and pro-
vide development opportunities for those in the very early stages of
their career (Harris and Townsend, 2007).
In 2007 Finland was at the top of educational performance tables.
Teaching in Finland is a high status profession with ten applicants
for every teacher-training place. All school leaders teach and also take
on a system-wide responsibility, supporting change and development
in other schools. Within Finland, schooling is viewed as a public
and not a private good and the school system is based upon the core
values of trust, co-operation and responsibility.
In contrast the US and English school systems are based on high
accountability mechanisms and low trust of teachers. Leaders in
many schools are far too busy to teach, even if they wanted to. So how
do we re-organise schools and school systems so that leaders are
closer to learning? How do we re-engage with the moral purpose of
education and produce tomorrow’s leaders who put learning before
targets?
Closing the attainment gap will not be secured simply by provid-
ing more school leaders. This will only be achieved by ameliorating
the negative and pervasive social and economic conditions that
influence communities and the life chances of young people. Any
attempts at educational improvement can only be part, and possibly
only a small part, of the wider agenda of reducing social and eco-
nomic inequalities in society (West and Pennell, 2003; Harris and
Ranson, 2005).
We know that within school factors or influences cannot offset the
forces of deprivation. However it is clear that schools can make a
difference and do make a difference to the life chances of young
people, particularly those young people in the poorest communities
(Harris et al, 2006a, 2006b; Reynolds et al, 2006). Within all
schools but particularly high-poverty schools, leadership is a critical
component in reversing low expectations and low performance. The
quality of leadership has been shown to be the most powerful
1 See ‘Developing Leaders’ Programme: www.ssat.org.uk.
Leadership in a changing world 5
influence on learning outcomes, second only to curriculum and
instruction (Leithwood et al, 2006a, 2006b). The question is what
type or form of school leadership is most likely to secure learning
success for all children in all contexts?
This book takes a long, hard look at distributed leadership as one
emerging form of leadership practice in schools. It examines distri-
buted leadership from the perspective of theory, practice and empiri-
cal evidence. It explores whether distributed leadership has the
potential to improve learning at the organisation and individual
level. As Youngs (2007:1) has pointed out, ‘issues of popularisation
mean that distributed forms of leadership may end up being yet
another “fad” ’. This is certainly true. It is important therefore to
stand back and take a critical, informed and empirically based look at
distributed leadership.
If distributed leadership is found to be little more than delegation,
then we need to know that and move on. If it has the potential to
broaden our understanding of school leadership and allows us to
suspend and possibly relinquish our conventional and dominant
views of leadership, it is worth pursuing. As Youngs (2007:1) points
out, the latter will require courage. Distributing leadership within and
across school and school systems requires a shift in power and
resources. It demands alternative school structures that support
alternative forms of leadership. Inevitably, this will generate some
criticism, resistance and even derision from those with a vested inter-
est in keeping things just the way they are.
But the pressure for change in school and school systems is now
acute. There are many global, national and local trends that will
necessitate significant changes in schools and schooling. Globalisa-
tion, changing employment opportunities and shifts in the pattern
of recruitment of school leaders are powerful forces for change. They
cannot be ignored. The pressure for change is relentless and
unremitting.
As each of these forces for change is explored in the sections and
chapters that follow, it is important to remember that the prime
reason for thinking about alternative ways of organising schools and
adopting different approaches to leadership is to make the learning
experiences of all young people better. It is primarily concerned with
the educational success of every student, irrespective of background
or context.
The analysis of social, economic and global ‘change forces’ sug-
gests that we urgently need new organisational forms and leadership
6 Leadership in a changing world
practices within our schools and school systems. We cannot have
twentieth century structures shaping twenty-first century leadership
practices. But none of these change forces is as important as the
moral purpose of education. Put simply, if we are committed to
changing leadership structures and practices in our schools, we do it
because we believe it will improve the learning and life chances of all
our students.
Globalisation
As a force for change, globalisation is rapidly reshaping societies and
cultures on a massive scale. Work is being redefined and organisa-
tional boundaries are being redrawn. The pace of change is relent-
less, even frantic, and the demands for improvements in schooling
unprecedented. As Bernake (2006:833) points out, ‘rather than
producing goods in a single process in a single location, firms are
increasingly breaking the production process into discrete steps and
performing each step in whatever location allows them to minimise
costs’. Theoretically, a business can employ anyone, at any time,
anywhere in the world. Outsourcing is now commonplace and mil-
lions of Chinese and Indians are working for US businesses located in
any of the three countries (Zhao, 2007:832). The global market place
is fast, complex and diverse.
Thomas Friedman (2006) talks about ten forces that have re-
defined and re-shaped the ‘flat world’ in the twenty-first century
(Friedman, 2006:828). His basic argument is that the boundaries and
barriers to global business have largely disappeared creating a flatter
world and a more competitive environment. He points out that the
type of leadership required in the ‘flat world’ is one that embodies
creativity, flexibility, portability and ingenuity. It is a form of leadership
that cannot be restricted by structures or organisational boundaries.
Despite such powerful global trends, leadership is still thought
about in a rather traditional way. As Senge et al (2005) propose:
One of the road blocks for groups moving forward now is think-
ing that they have to wait for a leader to emerge – someone who
embodies the future path. I think the key to going forward is
nurturing a new form of leadership that does not depend on
extraordinary individuals. (p 185)
Across all organisations the future competitive edge will be the
Leadership in a changing world 7
creative edge. In all sectors, the premier organisations will be singled
out by their ability to be transformative and innovative. Leadership
will be required that will secure transformation and rapid change.
Lightning-swift advances in technology and communication will
undoubtedly create greater challenges for leaders and leadership.
This is particularly true of schools.
As the link between individuals and their organisations is weaken-
ing, patterns of activity are shifting away from a central location and
point of control. As organisational functioning becomes more geo-
graphically dispersed, it remains questionable whether existing lead-
ership practice, particularly its hierarchical form, can survive. Senge
et al (2005) suggest that ‘in a world of global networks we face issues
for which hierarchical leadership is inherently inadequate’ (p 186).
Their work suggests that as long as our thinking is governed by
concepts from the ‘machine age’ we will continue to recreate institu-
tions as they were in the past, and leadership practices suited for
institutions belonging to another era.
Seeing leadership in a different way requires stopping our habitual
ways of thinking about leadership and leadership practice. The
capacity to suspend established ways of seeing is essential for all-
important scientific discoveries. It requires what Senge et al (2005:84)
term ‘sensing an emerging future’, where old frameworks are not
imposed on new realities. As the pace of technological development
quickens, so does the rate of what Joseph Schumpeter (1942) has
called the ‘creative destruction’ – of products, companies and even
entire industries. Little is predictable or repetitive, and ‘overall busi-
nesses operate less and less like halls of production and more and
more like a kind of casino of knowledge’ (Senge et al, 2005:84).
In his work, David Hargreaves (2007) argues that system leader-
ship requires more than head teachers securing sustainable system-
level change. He suggests that system redesign is needed to improve
the architecture of schooling, and highlights how leadership is a
powerful force of reconfiguration in the redesign of the system
(Hargreaves, 2007:27). This leadership configuration has five
components:
• flatter, less hierarchical staff structure;
• distributed leadership;
• student leadership;
• leadership development and succession;
• participative decision-making processes.
8 Leadership in a changing world
Hargreaves (2007) argues that these five components are already
in place in many schools, and that system redesign will emerge as
schools drive the process of transformation and change.
The educational environment has shifted so dramatically and so
permanently that we need to reconsider what we understand by lead-
ership and leadership practice in schools. In many countries, schools
are no longer at the centre of educational provision. Multi-agency
working, partnership and networks are the common denominators of
contemporary educational change. They are demanding and creating
alternative leadership practices. Inter-institutional collaboration and
multi-agency working are also providing the platforms for new lead-
ers to emerge. Support staff, parents, students and multi agency
professionals are all potential leaders and change agents.
In the ‘brave new’ economic world, schools will need to harness
all the available leadership capacity and capability. This will only
be achieved if schools maximise all forms of human, social and intel-
lectual capital. To maximise leadership capacity schools need to be
operating and performing at the level of the best schools. To achieve
this requires a radical shift in leadership practice.
Good to Great
In the opening line of his book Good to Great, Jim Collins (2001)
states that ‘good is the enemy of great’, and argues that one of the
reasons why we don’t have great schools is because we have good schools.
The vast majority of our schools, he suggests, never become great
because the vast majority become quite good. If we accept this
argument and ask what it takes for schools to become ‘great schools’
rather than good schools, we inevitably come back to leadership.
The research base is fairly unequivocal; leadership is an important
lever in organisational change and development (Leithwood et al,
2006a, 2006b). It is a powerful mechanism for school improvement
and is a major force for organisational transformation (Fullan, 2006:
Fullan et al, 2007). Evidence suggests that school leadership influ-
ences student learning outcomes and that the impact of leadership
upon student learning is significant (Leithwood et al, 2006a, 2006b).
Jim Collins and his researchers found, largely as they expected,
that leadership was a key factor in the success of the ‘good to great’
companies. However, the researchers were surprised with their find-
ings about the type of leadership in ‘good to great’ companies.
Instead of the autocratic or charismatic leader they found leaders who
