exploring distributed leadership in action: how meaning...

SUDHA GOVINDSWAMY

EdD Student Number: 079053460

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Module:

Educational Management, Leadership and Administration

Assignment Title:

Exploring distributed leadership in action: how meaning making can affect the notions of distributed leadership

Word Count: 7602 (excluding Abstract and References)

Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

Exploring distributed leadership in action: how meaning making can affect the notions of distributed leadership.

Abstract

The Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore distributed leadership in action and to investigate how meaning making can affect the notion of distributed leadership practice.

Background - The study is conducted in an international school in the UAE that has claimed to have adopted the distributed model of leadership practice. The school has adopted this model of leadership in order to reduce the implications of turnover of staff that hold key leadership positions and also to meet the high degree of accountability due to recent the state intervention in international school education in the UAE.

Design/Methodological Approach –The paper adopts a qualitative case study methodology and employs semi-structured interviews, observations and document reading to explore the claims distributed leadership practice and to understand how various parties involved make meaning of the term distributed leadership.

Findings- The findings reveal that the attempts to engage in distributed leadership practice has resulted in the wide distribution of expertise and responsibility across the school, thereby reducing the implications of turnover of staff that hold key leadership positions and has also improved accountability.

However, the findings also reveal that due to the differences in meaning attributed to the term ‘distributed leadership’ by various parties involved, claims of distributed leadership carry the risk of being viewed as a glorified version of ‘delegated leadership’ where leaders simply divide work among staff, thereby leading to reductionism of the term.


Originality –The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it explores how ‘meaning making’ can affect the notion of distributed leadership, regardless of the endeavors to actually engage in a distributed perspective of leadership.

Caution- Though distributed leadership perspectives should involve administrators, teachers, parents, student leadership and community at large, the practical scope of this assignment limits the study of distributed leadership as shared by teachers and administrators only.


Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. The Context of study

a. Exploring the notion of restructuring leadership from a heroic to a distributed model

3. Literature Review on the notion of Distributed Leadership4. Methodology5. Findings and outcomes 6. Conclusion and recommendations


1. Introduction

Through a qualitative case study research, this paper explores distributed leadership in action and investigates how meaning making of the term distributed leadership by various parties involved, can affect the notion of distributed leadership.

The case study is conducted in an international school in the UAE that has claimed to have adopted the distributed model of leadership. The school claims to have adopted this model of leadership in order to reduce the implications of turnover of staff that hold key leadership positions. The high degree of accountability due to the recent state intervention in international school education in the UAE has also been identified as an important reason in initiating this form of leadership.

The findings of the case study reveal that the attempt to distribute leadership has resulted in a wide distribution of roles and responsibilities thereby enabling the drawing of collective expertise, collaboration of best practices and in developing teacher leaders. The attempt to distribute leadership has thus reflected positively in terms of reducing the implications of turnover of staff that hold key positions and has also improved accountability.

However, the findings also reveal that due to the differences in meaning attributed to the term distributed leadership by various parties involved, claims of distributed leadership carry the risk of being viewed as a glorified version of ‘delegated leadership’, Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

where leaders simply divide work among staff, thereby leading to reductionism of the term.

Short-terms tenures of Principals and others who hold key leadership positions in international schools around the world is no new situation. Hawley (1995) in his research into the length of tenure of international school Principals concluded that the average tenure was a period of less than three years.

Hargreaves (2003, in Coles and Southworth 2005, p. 33) refer to the short term tenure of school leaders as the ‘revolving door syndrome’ and in this context, Hargreaves and Fink (2003) point out that schools leaders who are on ‘outbound trajectories’, need to think about issues of sustainability and continuity in the process of leadership succession. In international school scenarios, where shortened tenures of school leaders is more often the norm, Coles and Southworth (2005) raises the question if international schools achieve distributed leadership by default rather than by choice.

The United International School (UIS) in the UAE, where this case study has been conducted, claims to have adopted the distributed model of leadership as a matter of choice.

2. The context of studyThe United International School (UIS) began its operations in 2005.


Until 2008, the school functioned primarily on a hierarchical-hero-enabled model, where the Principal primarily took the major responsibility of running the school. Authority and decision making largely vested on and between the Principal and the Director.

The school also had department heads for various subject areas. Day-to day running of the school was primarily the responsibility of the Principal. The Principal would meet with department heads once in a fortnight to provide information that was needed to be passed on to teachers.

Department heads had no decision making authority and were seen as the primary contact person for teachers in the discharge of day-to-day affairs and duties. Department heads would confer issues or matters that would arise with the Principal and get back to the teachers based on the decisions made by the Principal.

Such a leadership model made the Principal the primary decision making authority in terms of running the school. Strategic decisions and budgetary control matters were made between the Principal and the Director. Such a model that depended solely on one or two individuals made continuity and consistency a major issue, in the event of the Principal or the Director leaving the school.


Until 2008, international schools in the UAE functioned independently and were beyond state intervention. In 2008, the Ministry of Education in the UAE, founded the KHDA (Knowledge and Human Development Authority) under which all schools, Public and Private, National and International come under inspection and review of the KHDA. The inspection report categorizes schools under four categories “Outstanding; Good; Acceptable and Unsatisfactory”. The KHDA rating determines the permissible fee structures of schools; schools rated “Outstanding” getting the most mileage.

Within the last four years of operation, UIS has witnessed change of headships in the position of the Principal and Director, three times respectively. The high rate of turnover of staff who hold key leadership positions added with the pressure from the external environment such as the KHDA in terms of the high degree of accountability, has forced the administration of the UIS to review leadership perspectives in the school.

The Principal who took over the position of headship in the school in 2008 has been a major catalyst in initiating a distributed perspective of leadership within the school, thereby empowering teachers in the process of decision making.

Exploring the notion of restructuring leadership from a heroic to a distributed model


The Principal who claims to have initiated the distributed model of leadership in the UIS believes that drawing on expertise from within the organization and distributing leadership roles and responsibilities across the school was in a sense more practical approach to enable continuity in the light of turnover of staff that hold key leadership positions and also to improve accountability.

The distribution of leadership began by creating formal positions and informal positions such as curriculum leaders, peer-mentors, coordinators and so on. The administration also created various working groups, such as the Language Policy working group, the school Mission Statement working group, Community and Services working group, to name a few. Each of these groups worked on identifying areas that needed improvement and were collaboratively engaged in developing “Action Plans”, so as to enable teachers and administrators to work collectively towards common goals.

The creation of formal curriculum leadership positions was supplemented with a system of Professional Learning Community (PLC). The PLC initiated a program of Peer Mentoring where in teachers would learn from and support each other.

Meetings were initiated for teachers to meet at interdisciplinary levels and across grade levels. Various committees were formed that gave teachers an opportunity to interact and share ideas and


practices. Curriculum leaders provided support and mentoring of new teachers through frequent class observations, so as to help new teachers succeed, thereby promoting collegiality and mutual support.

In some instances formal position holders received stipends and in some other instances, teachers were given lesser work load to compensate for time aspects. In many situations teachers and curriculum leaders were given new job descriptions that were collaboratively developed so as to draw on expertise of many rather than a few.

Subject leaders were encouraged to take on a dynamic role that required them to facilitate discussions with colleagues as a group, thereby promoting school development and shared practice. Collaborative decision making was initiated by the senior management team by involving Curriculum leaders and committee heads in the decision making process.

The school also organized regular Professional development sessions that were designed to meet the needs of teachers. Teachers were given the choice of planning the content for PD sessions, thereby making the PD sessions more relevant. Interested teachers were invited to lead PD sessions within their chosen areas of expertise,

Curriculum leaders who coordinated and distributed tasks within the department, drew on expertise within the department in areas


of developing curriculum and in sharing of best practices. Committee leaders worked to initiate a sequence of interaction within and between committees, thereby enabling vertical and horizontal interactions and interdependencies.

The Principal at UIS, supported by the Assistant Principal as well as the school counselor worked separately yet interdependently on developing the school discipline policy and were also supported by Curriculum Leaders with inputs from their respective departments.

It was thus observed at the UIS, an attempt to engage in distributed leadership practice, fostered wide distribution of roles and responsibilities across the organization. This distribution, according to the Principal, was based mostly on expertise on a pragmatic sense and on some other occasions to gain situational advantage, for example to improve teacher accountability in terms of meeting the KHDA requirements.

Once an initial study was conducted to explore the context as well as the claim of distributed leadership practice as made by the school, a wide range of literature review was undertaken in order to identify major themes in literature associated with the term of distributed leadership.

3. Literature Review on the notion of Distributed leadership


(Mayrowtez, 2008, p. 426) point out that the idea of viewing leadership as spread throughout an organization is not new and that it has been expressed explicitly or implicitly for several years by many researchers (Mayrowetz & Weinstein, 1999;Ogawa & Bossert, 1995; Pounder, Ogawa, & Adams, 1995).

However, regardless of the growing popularity of the notions of distributed leadership, clear definitions of the term distributed leadership are few and what exists differ widely in terms of categorization rather than in actual essence.

MacBeath (2005, p. 356) alone identifies six ways of thinking about distributed leadership: “distribution formally, pragmatically,strategically, incrementally, opportunistically and culturally”. Each of these ways of thinking about distributed leadership can however have different interpretations based on the situation or context. For example, distributing leadership strategically can vary depending on the situations during which such a strategy is aimed to be deployed.

Gronn (2003, pp. 31-43) offers a major conceptual contribution to the study of distributed leadership emphasizing on three distinctive elements of a distributed practice. First is the notion that views distributed leadership a network of interacting individuals that lays emphasis on ‘pooled interdependence’.


A second dimension is where distributed leadership is viewed as a ‘concertive action’ comprising of aggregate rather than individual acts, which is achieved through more open boundaries. And thirdly, distributed leadership is viewed as ‘conjoint agencies that manifest interpersonal reciprocal influence and synergy’. In each of these dimensions, interaction and interdependence emerge as key elements.

However, as Lakomski (2008, p. 162) points out, each of these dimensions are open to interpretation and these interpretations will differ depending on the contextual factors and the interpreter’s point of view, thereby making distributed leadership “a set of vague notions flying in loose formation.” ( Churchland, 1989, pp. 382-3). This as Lakomski (2008) points out, raises questions as to what exactly are theorists studying when they study distributed leadership.

Kayworth and Leidner (2000) offers the most restricted definitions of distributed leadership by saying distributed leadership is often practiced through technological means where stakeholders are located in remote locations and communicate through web-based mediums such as e-mail and on-line forums such as blogs. Though a very restricted notion of ‘distributing’ leadership, this form is often adopted by business entities where various stakeholders operate from different geographical locations, thereby making the process more cost effective.


However, this model is far too restricted for organizations such as schools, where most stakeholders (in this case teachers and administrators) are present in the same geographical location and more often in the same building. In such an environment, distributed leadership will need to adopt a more ‘fluid approach’ (Gronn 2000, p. 324).

Haris and Muijs (2005 ) state that in organizations such as schools, distributed leadership models would take the form of capitalizing existing expertise within the organization rather than seeking this through formal positions and roles. Thus it implies a social distribution of leadership where the leadership function is ‘stretched over’ (Spillane et al.2001, pp. 12-14) the work of several individuals and where the leadership task is accomplished through the interaction of multiple leaders. It also implies interdependency rather than dependency, amongst leaders who play different roles and share various responsibilities. (Haris and Muijs, 2005)

Ideally in distributed leadership, leadership is located ‘between and among individuals’ (Harris and Mujis 2005, p. 14) and would encompass teachers, students, non-teaching staff, parents and the community thereby emerging as a ‘group or network of interacting individuals’ (Bennette et.al 2003, p.7). This, as pointed out by Haris and Muijs (2005), would imply a redistribution and realignment of power and authority, so as to move towards a shared purpose or goals.


Sergiovanni (1990, p.26) emphasis the need for shared purpose and common vision in schools through the concept of ‘value-added leadership’ by saying

All of us want meaning in our lives beyond a paycheck, beyond daily sustenance, we want the opportunity to share great values and great visions – and to have a real part of turning these values and visions into reality

What is being proposed here is that teachers need to see meaning beyond day-today affairs and to be collectively engaged in fostering the school vision. This then transpires into a “rewarding experience that gets things done even when no one is looking” Sergiovanni (1990, p. 22)

Thus here teacher empowerment is seen as ‘collegiality’ which is seen as the extent to which administrators and teachers share common values and interact and communicate to help and support each other towards the realization of those common goals.

Spillane (2006, p. 57) cites researchers such as Gronn (2000, 2003), on claiming that from a distributed perspective, leadership practice takes shape in the interaction of leaders, followers, and their situation. In this perspective, the focus is on how leadership is distributed, how this practice is stretched over a group of individuals or leaders and how the interaction between the leaders, followers and the situation takes place. This form of


leadership practice thus borrows the notion of “in between” from Salomon and Perkins (1998) where leadership practice is central.

Spillane (2006, p. 84) thus recommends that the pursuit of understanding a distributed approach to leadership should involve focusing on the leadership practice that involves exploring the ‘interactions among the leaders, followers and their situations’. Spillane (2006, p.7) also emphasizes that the study of distributed leadership should move beyond the structures and roles and focus on practice by paying careful attention to gauge if in reality, distributed leadership is falling through the ‘cracks of day-to-day practice’. In this sense, it can be said that distributed leadership is viewed by Spillane (2006) as an analytical framework for thinking or analyzing leadership practice so as to generate insights to gain further understandings of the practice. Focusing on practice, would involve a paradigm shift in terms of roles, structures and situations.

Whitaker (1993, pp. 73-74) in his article Managing Change in Schools offers the following table to explain the paradigm shift involved in moving leadership perspectives from a heroic-enabled model to a distributed-model.

Figure 1: The Paradigm ShiftManagement Leadership

Vertical Sideways

Fixed roles Flexible roles


Individual responsibility Shared responsibility

Autocratic Collaborative

Delivering expertise Developing expertise

Status Stature

Efficiency Effectiveness

Control Release

Power Empowerment

(Source: Whitaker (1993) Managing Change in Schools. pp. 73-74.)

Thus in a distributed perspective of leadership as demonstrated above, leadership involves a ‘paradigm shift’ – a thinking that draws on the intellectual capital that is spread widely across and within an organization, thereby enabling the build up of the ‘enormous reservoir of leadership expertise’ (Whiteaker, 1993, p. 86). Distributed leadership also empowers groups and individuals by concentrating on engaging expertise wherever it exists within the organization rather than seeking this only through formal position or role (Haris 2004, p. 13).

Within a distributed leadership environment, Spillane, et al. (2006) identify three types of leadership distribution. First, a collaborative distribution of roles and responsibilities that is based


on the notion of “reciprocal interdependencies” between individual teachers.

Ritchie (n.d, p.3) explains this notion by saying that ‘this would mean that each teacher’s actions arise from interactions with other teachers and this in turn fuel subsequent and continuing interactions’. Such a process lays emphasis on the ongoing cycle of actions and interactions central to leadership practice.

Second, “coordinated distribution” that refers to tasks that teachers undertake separately or together in a “coordinated sequence”. These tasks, explains (Spillane et. al 2001, 2004) are usually allocated and coordinated by the designated leader. Thirdly, collective distribution of leadership practice that is “stretched over two or more leaders who work separately but interdependently”.

Spillane et. al (2006) also point out that in exploring leadership activity that is distributed or stretched over multiple people, understanding the tools used to enable this distribution to be possible, is also paramount.

Spillane (2006, p. 3), cautions that often discussions of distributed leadership end prematurely by merely acknowledging that multiple leaders take up responsibilities for leadership routines and roles. Distributed leadership, on the other hand should be achieved through ‘concertive labour’ performed by pluralities of interdependent organization member’ (Gronn, 2003, p.28)


Also, in a distributed perspective, the context assumes an important role. Spillane (2006, p.6) points out that though in distributed leadership, a leader plus aspect is paramount to the practice of leadership, this alone is insufficient to understand the intricacies of collective interactions among leaders, followers and their situation, where situation is not merely the context within which leadership functions, but the defining element of the practice itself.

4.Methodology

A case study methodology was adopted in order to understand the claims distributed leadership practice and how various parties involved make meaning of the distributed practice. A case study methodology attempts to see the situation through the eyes of participants in actual situations, thereby recognizing that context is a powerful determinant (Cohen et al. 2000: p. 181) of the cause and effect relationships.

Case study methodology particularly focuses on a single issue or unit of analysis and through multiple sources of evidence, an attempt is made to understand the complexities of real-life activities. Such an approach thereby allows an investigation of ‘contextual realities and the differences between what was planned and what actually occurred’ (Anderson,1993).


The ontological aspect of interpretivism holds that social reality is the result of interactions between actors in real social contexts and that the social world cannot exist outside of the independent minds of social actors (Burrell & Morgan 1979, p. 260).

The intrepretivist approach to social research aims to investigate the meanings and interpretations of social actors in specific situations (Burrell & Morgan, 1979) and emphasis here is on the explanation of the subjective viewpoint through the meanings that people place upon their experiences.

Thus in order to explore how meaning making can affect the notion of the term ‘distributed leadership’, an interpretivist approach that involves an investigation of the complex and dynamic interactions of ‘events, humans relationships’ (Cohen et al. 2000: p. 181) was found necessary.

Data for this case study was gathered through semi-structured interviews, observations and reading documents, thereby enabling multiple source of evidence. Wellington (2000, p. 94) cites Stenhouse (1979) to recommend that observations, interviews and discussions with participants combine together to ‘build the picture that captures the texture of reality’ .

Interviewing was adopted as the main tool of data capture as it helps in ‘providing original and illuminating data’ (Yin, 1994, p. 134). Semi-structured interviews were adopted because it offers sufficient flexibility to approach different respondents differently


while still covering the same areas of data collection. Interviews were supplemented with observations so as to enable covering events in real time and within contexts (Yin, 1994). Interviews were followed up with observations to generate insight and gain a better understanding on the situations and contexts studied.

The first stage of investigation in this case study primarily focused on exploring how the claim of ‘distributed leadership’ was made and how the distribution of leadership was achieved across the school. This information was gathered from observations, document reading as well as a series of structured and semi-structured interviews with the Principal who was the major catalyst in initiating the model of distributed leadership.

The second stage of the study sought to explain how various parties within the model made meaning of the term distributed leadership. Data for the second stage was collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with the curriculum coordinator, curriculum leaders, committee coordinators and teachers.

Observational data was also gathered through a series of semi-structured and unstructured observations. In order to confirm the ‘claim’ of distributed leadership as made by the Principal, some structured observations were also made so as to use the observational data to ‘confirm or refute’ (Cohen and Manion 2000, p. 305) the data gathered from the interviews.


Questions for the interviews were designed to elicit information on how the participants interpreted and understood the current model of leadership that adopted the label of ‘distributed leadership’. Teacher interviews lasted for about half-an hour and curriculum leader interviews lasted for about 40 minutes. Administrator interviews lasted about 40-45 minutes. The interviewees were asked for explanations for every claim made and were required to reflect with examples of situations.

When relying on interviews as the main source of data capture, Yin (1994) cautions that besides the danger of bias and inaccuracies due to poor recall, there is also the danger of the interviewee giving what the interviewer wants to hear(Yin, 1994). Also, while resorting to interviews to gather data, Bassey (1999, p.81) cautions that respondents may actually construct their position during the interview to issues that they have not given deep thought previously. Hence open-ended questions were adapted as the situation developed during the interview that enabled participants to ‘think on their feet’ (Bassey 1999, p. 81).

When resorting to observations in a qualitative case study, Yin (1994) draws attention to the likelihood of the dangers of narrow focus and the situation or event progressing differently because it is being observed. Notes taken during meetings and discussions were hence followed up with document reading and one-to-one interviews to ensure rigor and validity of data gathered. Special


care was also taken to avoid choosing events that ‘suits the purpose’. Cohen et al. (2000) caution researchers to allow situations to speak for themselves and to avoid judgments to be made by the researcher.

Though case studies enable researchers to gain holistic view of events or situations that can be supported through multiple sources of evidence, case studies have often been critiqued on the grounds of the issue of reliability, validity and genaralizability. Case study researchers are also critiqued and cautioned in terms of the risk of data being prone to researcher bias.

Wolcott (1995, p. 175 ) points out that “each case study is unique, but not so unique that we cannot learn from it and apply its lessons more generally”. In this context, Yin (1994) advocates conducting multiple case studies in varied sites and extended over a period of time, the cumulative analysis of which can be used to produce generalizations.

5. Findings and outcomes

Findings from the case study reveal that an attempt to engage in distributed leadership practice at the UIS went beyond a reshuffling of assignments. Such a process called for a “fundamental shift in organizational thinking” whereby leadership had to be redefined as the collective responsibility of everyone in the school (Lashway ,2003, p.3), working on the principle that “people should lead where they have expertise”.


As Haris & Muijs (2002, p. 1) point out, the real challenge facing schools is no longer ‘how to improve’ but more importantly, ‘how to sustain improvement’. Developing ‘teacher leaders’ (Haris & Chapman, 2002; Haris, 2002) and by distributing leadership throughout the organization rather than vesting leadership with a few (Gronn 2000, p. 1), was a model adopted at UIS so as to engage in a distributed perspective of leadership practice.

This was viewed as a ‘pragmatic’ ( MacBeath, 2005, p.356) approach by the Principal, in terms of enabling continuity in the light of turnover of staff who hold key leadership positions. A restructuring of leadership perspectives was also seen as an effective ‘strategy’ ( MacBeath, 2005, p. 356) to meet the high degree of accountability due to recent state intervention.

Haris (2002, p.3) points out that ‘collaboration is at the heart of distributed leadership’ and such an endeavor is based on change that is undertaken collectively. The findings of the case study revealed that a distributed form of leadership practice has enabled more collaboration within the school. “Peer mentoring, friendly support from curriculum leaders, teachers presenting workshops in their areas of expertise have all led to more collaboration and sharing of practices within the school”, observed one teacher.


Staff at the UIS was also motivated to collectively share their expertise and initiatives in a way that produced ‘actions and benefits that are greater than those they could achieve alone’ (Gronn, 2003). In many situations, job descriptions were re-written (Spillane, 2003, p. 44), so as to re-distribute leadership vertically and horizontally in the school and teachers and curriculum leaders took on a dynamic and proactive role’ Bell and Ritchie (1999), to foster collaboration and support.

However findings also reveal that within some departments at the UIS, there seemed to be a wide variation of distribution of leadership when compared with other departments. For instance, in the Science department, leadership was more of a ‘back-and forth’ (Spillane, 2006, p. 23) where teachers and curriculum leaders constantly engaged in dialogue and interaction in developing the science curriculum and teaching and learning strategies. However in the English department more of an autocratic style was observed where the Curriculum leader played the leadership role with more of ‘instructions’ as to how things need to be done. Teachers would perform a task and then get back to the curriculum leader for feedback and advice on issues encountered. This would still be viewed as distributed leadership, but in a ‘restricted sense’ (Spillane 2006).

Woods et al.(2004) raises this point in his research on distributed leadership by noting that, though leadership can be stretched over leaders in a school, it need not necessarily be democratically Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

always, in that there is interaction and collaboration between leaders and followers, but in far more constrained way.

Leaders and teachers agreed that a collaborative practice has also resulted in many advantages. For example, one teacher remarked that good amount of progress been made in terms of building the middle school curriculum unique to the school, “a legacy that will remain forever”. “Such an extent of progress in such a short time could not have been achieved unless responsibilities were shared by providing more opportunities for open dialogue and interaction. This will help a lot in the situation of high rate of teacher turnover as well…”

In the same context however, some teachers felt that collaborative practices sometimes lead to ”Simply re-inventing the wheel...”. One teacher observed, “yes, the curriculum is a ‘legacy’ of the school, but my question is why should we ‘create’ a curriculum, when we can simply adopt so many of the already existing models…collaborative practice should not be about doing things that are not needed in the first place…”

Some teachers and curriculum leaders raised the point that “sometimes we all discuss, collaborate and are consulted, but when the decision is finally made, we do not how or who prioritized on adopting some suggestions whilst deciding to drop some of the others…”.

Hartley (2007, p. 211) raises this issue in his research and points out that within distributed leadership practice, the decision of Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

‘what is to be distributed’ is a big question and claims that often it is the ‘tactics and not the strategy which are available for distribution’, thereby suggesting that hierarchical forms of accountability still remain within distributed environments.

Thus the findings in this case study revealed that though the school was successful in establishing working committees and support systems to foster collegiality amongst staff through peer mentoring opportunities, some teachers felt that the final decision making and accountability aspects still were vested with the Principal in many aspects.

“This is however inevitable”, pointed out one staff member. “Distribution can be achieved in terms of tasks and responsibilities, but the Principal is still accountable to the management. What however becomes different here is that in many of the decisions made by the Principal, teachers’ voice is integral. This form of leadership practice thereby entails more support from staff as all we are all a part of the decision making process…”

One teacher raised the issue of how important it is to acknowledge that sometimes ‘leaders’ need to decide when one can use collaborative practice effectively. “At times it would be better if we were simply told what needs to be done and by when. Too much time spent on collaborative decision making sometimes ends up in a situation that certain decisions are never being made but always only being ‘discussed’”.


There was considerable appreciation of the fact that boundaries were more blur in this form of leadership. Staff voice and input were far more valued in such a distributed environment, than in a hierarchical model. “Teachers and administrators work as a close network in this environment and boundaries are more open and blurred. Previously many decisions that were made within the Principal’s office are now open to discussion and thinking by staff. It feels good to be ‘valued’ and decisions are based on expertise rather than mere position. After all, the Principal cannot be an expert in everything…” , observed one teacher.

The Principal remarked that though a distributed perspective to leadership reduces the ‘lonely at the top’ feeling, one of the mindsets that needed considerable alteration in a distributed perspective is the notion that “there has to be a leader”. In this context Duignan (2006, p.4) points out that as long as the notion that “the buck stops at the Principals’ desk” exists, a ‘true sharing of leadership’ will not take place.

For distributed leadership to me most effective, it has to encompass mutual trust, support and enquiry. As teachers engage in collaboration of best practices, an environment of support and trust gets built. One curriculum leader observed, “this model of leadership has provided teachers the opportunity to come out of their ‘shells’ and to share and learn from each other. The peer mentoring process initiated has enabled this to happen’’.


The Principal pointed out that, “when everyone is involved in the decision making process, an environment of trust and support is fostered rather than a blame culture.”

“Previously teachers were simply given ‘instructions’ or a ‘to-do’ list. However with this culture of distributing leadership, teachers are often consulted and made a part of the decision making process thereby making the making the ‘black-box’ more transparent and accessible for all…” observed another teacher. Glatter (2003) observes that in schools, such an ‘organic process’ of sharing visions is likely to be more successful than change which is imposed.

However, though the findings revealed a note of positive spirit in this area, some teachers and curriculum leaders expressed concern of teachers being involved in too many administrative decision making procedures, whereby their time to devote to teaching was impaired. “Administrators are paid to be in meetings and take decisions, we are not. We are here to teach and hence are expected to do this over and beyond out teaching duties; and our investment in time for decision making meetings is not compensated for…” , remarked one teacher.

There was an agreement on participant views that distributed leadership was a “social, rather than an individual activity” (Lashway 2003, p.2). However, distributing leadership was at times viewed by some staff as risking the distribution of authority Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

and power amongst incompetent people. One teacher remarked, “assigning leadership roles when made voluntary sometimes results in incompetent people taking up leadership roles, this is very frustrating…, after all, everybody cannot be a leader…”. Timperley (2005, p. 417) raises this point in his research on distributed leadership by saying ”distributing leadership is a risky business and may result in the distribution of incompetence…”.Jay (2006, pp. 6-7) argues that while one important element of distributed leadership practice is empowerment – which by itself is a ‘sense of meaning’, it is not possible for everyone to feel empowered all the time. In this regard, Jay (2006) also draws attention to the caution raised by Argyris (1998) in recognizing the inherent tensions in the process of empowerment is also essential to avoid risking confinement of the term to ‘hollow rhetoric’ .

As pointed out by one of the curriculum leaders at UIS, “the high pressure in today’s educational sector and with greater state interventions such as the KHDA rating has made a leader’s role far more demanding. This added with short term tenures of staff that hold key leadership positions makes transition quite difficult to deal with. With this form of leadership, a greater degree of continuity has been offered as leadership roles and responsibilities are shared by many rather than a few”.

Haris ( 2002, p. 7) observes that “distributed leadership challenges the ‘cult of individualism’ and confronts the impulse for privacy and idiosyncratic institutional practice”. Instead, it Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

offers a model in which organizational change and improvement are a collective rather than an individual concern.

There was consensus on the opinion that engaging in distributed leadership has enabled teachers to engage in far more professional development opportunities initiated by the management. “Adopting a distributed perspective to leadership has provided leadership training opportunities for curriculum leaders, committee leaders as well as teachers thereby enabling opportunities to share leadership views and practices. Sharing of best practices and learning from each other has been a very valuable experience…”

“ It is not easy for an administrator to share his ‘power’ as with such a sharing comes additional risks of failures as well. But every change involves a risk element and compared to the advantages this form of leadership practice, it is worthwhile taking this risk..” observed the Principal.

Some participants agreed that leadership is distributed not by delegating or giving it away, but by ‘weaving together people, materials and organizational structures in a common cause’ (Lashway,2003, p. 2). However some participants expressed concerns over the fact that at times it becomes quite frustrating when it appears that management is eliciting more work from teachers in the name of ‘distribution’ of leadership. “Distributed leadership has simply added more to the work load of teachers…teachers are expected to develop curriculum, Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

involve in meetings and strategic decision making and so on which are the duties of the Principal…at the end of the day we teachers have to teach too…”.

In this regard, Johnson (2004) raises the issue that distributed leadership often turns out to be a micro-political strategy of dividing responsibility amongst teachers and hence advises researchers to have a closer look to see whose interests are served by such ‘distribution’. Thus, those attracted to discussions of distributed forms of leadership as a more democratic alternative to conventional leadership would be:

well advised to look closely at whose interests are served by particular distributions, the channeling of leadership to particular ends, and the ways in which actors redistribute leadership based on the power and resources available. (Maxcy and Nguyen, 2006,p. 189).

During one of the interviews one teacher observed, “distribution of leadership is simply a ‘catch-phrase’ used these days instead of “delegation”. It has brought about so many additional duties without a significant reflection on compensation…”

However some others contradicted this notion by stating that this perspective of leadership has provided them with learning opportunities to further their career. “By undertaking various leadership positions and roles both formally and informally, we teachers have benefitted hugely in terms of professional development and professional growth opportunities which would Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

not have been so available in a hierarchical model where certain tasks will never move out of the Principal’s office. Yes, it may bring additional duties, but the learning opportunity such a model provides is highly valuable …”

The Principal remarked that the greatest challenge in the whole process was re-creating a ‘school culture’ where people moved away from a blame-culture to one of support and encouragement. “This is a time-consuming process that cannot happen overnight…this also has partly due to the fact that such a perspective of distributing leadership involves establishing clear rituals and routines within the organization”.

Fullan (2001) has rightly argued that in fostering change in schools, a process of ‘reculturing’ will be necessary and that teachers can be very influential in terms of the reculturing processes and influencing colleagues. In this regard, Duignan (2006) supports the argument raised by Binney and Williams (1996) and points out that often it is the thinking on which change programs are based which needs to be re-examined, such as the philosophy on which the practice is based, the assumptions made for having adopted a particular model of practice and so on. Such a re-examination of the thinking that goes behind the process becomes essential not in fact because it is wrong, but because probably the existing way of thinking does not take account of the whole picture of people in organizations, i.e., the organizational culture.


In such a situation of re-culturing, as observed by Spillane (2006), the tools and routines that are adopted to engage in the process of re-culturing constitute an integral element of practice. Spillane (2006, p. 19) also points out that taking a distributed perspective should move beyond merely acknowledging the importance of tools and should engage in identifying clearly which of the tools and routines will feature in leadership practice.

When asked about the tools and routines adopted in the process of distributed leadership practice, the Principal in his interview explained, “It was necessary to identify areas that needed improvement and then create structures and routines that enabled regular and on-going support…the committee created for training and developing differentiation strategies which also offered ongoing support and fostered continued interaction and sharing of best practices would be a typical example here…the committee members also meet on a regular and ongoing basis to review progress and identify strategies that failed and to discuss why they failed and how they could be improve upon”.

Thus here the findings reveal that the tools that were identified moved beyond the point of being just ‘accessories’ to being the actual elements that enable ‘leader-follower interaction that shape practice’ (Spillane, 2006, p. 18).

Findings from the case study also revealed that though in some situations staff welcomed the transformation in leadership perspectives there were other situations where staff did not feel


this was a ‘very welcome change’. In this context, James (2010, pp. 2-3) draws on Fonagy’s (2001) notion that teachers have “a very powerful attachment to their work” and hence could find the process of change, “profoundly disturbing and disorientating”, as any change can also lead to a “loss of meaning which requires a fundamental re-structuring of meaning”. As observed by James (2010), for a variety of reasons, ‘schools are places with high levels of affective intensity’ (James, 2010, p. 2 ). Some staff members felt there were too many changes in a short time. One staff member observed: “we have done this along in a certain way and now distribution of leadership requires to blossom overnight as part-administrators. This is too overwhelming and energy-draining…”.

In this regard the Principal supported the observation made previously by another curriculum leader that, “sometimes such changes are inevitable. For instance state intervention in schools in the UAE has tightened much of the requirements and expectations from administrators and teachers. Teachers are now required to document much of their work than what they did before. This has had to do with a change in the ‘culture’ in terms of the routines that teachers did earlier. A supportive environment fostered through a distributive perspective can help the change process…”

Thus on the one hand, the findings from the case study as discussed above makes it evident that the attempt to engage in distributed leadership practice has resulted in a wide distribution Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

of roles and responsibilities across the school thereby fostering a culture of collaborative practice and collective engagement towards common and shared goals. However, on the other hand, the findings also reveal due to the differences in meaning attributed by various practice involved, the term is vulnerable for being interpreted as a ‘strategy’ of administrators to elicit more work from teachers, thereby leading to reductionism of the term.

The ‘paradigm shift’ at the UIS while attempting to engage in a distributed leadership practice has been summarized in the following table

Positive outcomes while attempting to engage in distributed leadership practice

Challenges identified due to the difference in the meaning making process

Collaborative practice and drawing on collective expertise

Within a distributed practice there exists a wide variation: some degree of autocracy seen in some departments

Blurring of boundaries Who distributes leadership and when to distribute leadership

Wide distribution of power element Power in the hands of incompetent people can produce negative impact

Creation of new tools and routines to enable distribution

Seen by some as re-inventing the wheel

Professional development opportunities for teachers

Additional work load, too many responsibilities for teachers and thereby less time devoted for teaching

Fosters a culture change Too many changes leads to a sense of loss of meaning for some teachers

Fosters trust and support Viewed by some as a ‘catch phrase’ to elicit more work from teachers

Transparency in decision making and staff voice integral in decision making

Final decision making still resides with the Principal


6. Conclusion and recommendations

The issue of teacher-administrator dichotomy in understanding roles and responsibilities in distributed leadership is not new and distribution of leadership practice has always been open to varied understanding and interpretations. However, what is interesting to note from the findings in this case study is that the issue the dichotomy of understanding distributed leadership is not always between teachers and administrators, but rather within teachers themselves.

While some welcomed this form of leadership with wider distribution of responsibility, accountability and openness and participatory decision making acknowledging this as a valuable learning experience, others felt this was simply an excuse for administrators to divide their work and thereby overburdening teachers. The latter view can be because of the fact that these respondents still view distribution as delegation and in such a situation demand being compensated monetarily for the duties being ‘distributed’.

The talk of leadership per se has always been a challenging concept to unpack in terms of the processes, activities and contexts that constitute leadership. From a distributed perspective, the concept of leadership becomes all the more complex due to the variations in meanings attributed to the Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

collective interactions amongst the various parties involved in distributed leadership.

It needs to be recognized that engaging in distributed leadership practice is an ongoing process. This process involves constant engagement in reviewing the practice and working continuously on developing tools and routines that shape and foster a distributed practice.

Developing a clear structure and identifying the tools and routines within that structure thereby assumes an important role in a distributed leadership practice. This would require a considerable investment of time.

In order to ensure teachers are not over loaded with administrative responsibilities that may impact negatively on teaching, it is essential to strike a balance between teaching duties and administrative responsibilities undertaken. Also a culture of engaging in distributed leadership practice needs to be developed in a consistent yet step-by-step manner so that teachers do not feel that too many changes are made within a short time.

In the light of the high degree of accountability and a highly transient environment of staff in international schools, distributed leadership offers potential advantage in terms of capitalizing on the strength of many rather than few, thereby enabling harnessing of ‘human capital’ across the organization.


Variations in the understanding and interpretations of the term ‘distributed leadership’ cannot be totally ruled out as peoples’ interpretations are based on their own personal and professional experiences. This is more applicable in international school settings that draw professionals from various backgrounds. Fostering a culture of open-dialogue will be an important part of the process that also needs to be supplemented with a clear identification of tools and routines in order to help reduce the gap in the meaning making process and interpretations.

It is worth mentioning that though the school collectively engaged in a distributed practice of leadership, the entire process was initiated by the Principal himself. The Principal’s vision and leadership vision enabled the ‘distributive process’ to happen. The Principal’s belief in this form of leadership practice was hence supplemented with time and support in order to enable teachers to engage in such a practice. It will be interesting to see how the process sustains and carries on, in the event of change of the Principal and another leader coming into the school. Whether forthcoming leaders will support the ‘distributive process’ with the necessary time and resources will be an area to identify for future research.

Though the case study has been conducted in an international school in the UAE, the findings and the implications therein can be applied to different settings in international schools in other geographical locations. However, it needs to be borne in mind that generalizations cannot be drawn based on a single case Sudha Govindswamy : 079053460

study over a short period of time. Multiple case studies need to be conducted over a longer period of time in different contexts in order to identify the common themes of challenges that emerge from such practice.

Distributed leadership practice is a complex process as it involves and focuses on interactions and actions between and amongst individuals. The interactions that happen ‘in-between’ is also an area that can be identified for further research, in order to gauge if the process of ‘distribution’, is in reality not slipping in between the cracks of everyday practice.

It is worthwhile mentioning here that distributed leadership is not sought as a replacement of traditional models of leadership. Distributed leadership practice can supplement and support existing leadership practice within the school. Distributed leadership practice needs to be viewed as a valuable learning experience: a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

____________________________


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