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In 2008 we published an article in this journal entitled Seven Strong Claims about Successful School Leadership (Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins, 2008). The article was based on a major literature review that was summarised in a paper published by the National College for School Leadership in England 1. Both the NCSL paper and our subsequent article, proved to be more popular than we anticipated and have been extensively cited over the past 10 years (Hallinger, in press). This article revisits each of the seven claims, summarizing what was said about each in the original publications 2 , weighing each of the claims considering recent evidence, and proposing revisions or refinements as warranted. At the outset, the claims were introduced with the following caveat: These claims are not all strong in quite the same way, as we shall explain, but they all find support in varying amounts of quite robust empirical evidence, the first two having attracted the largest amount of such evidence. Those in leadership roles have a tremendous responsibility to get it right. Fortunately, we know a great deal about what getting it right means. The purpose of this article is to provide a synopsis of this knowledge.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to provide an overview of the literature concerning distributed leadership and organisational change. The main purpose of the paper is to consider the empirical evidence that highlights a relationship between distributed leadership and organisational outcomes. Design/methodological approach -The paper draws on several fields of enquiry, including organisational change, school effectiveness, school improvement and leadership. It systematically analyses the evidence in each field and presents a synthesis of key findings. Findings -The evidence shows first, that there is a relationship between distributed leadership and organisational change, second, that there is evidence to suggest that this relationship is positive and third, that different patterns of distribution affect organisational outcomes. Originality/value -The significance and originality of this paper lies in the fact that it: takes a normative position on distributed leadership and is chiefly concerned with the question of organisational impact; demonstrates the importance and necessity of further research about the way in which distributed leadership influences organisational outcomes; and acknowledges the methodological challenges in conducting research on distributed leadership but argues that such research will make a significant contribution to knowledge and theory generation in the leadership field.

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