Taking a Distributed Perspective in Studying School Leadership and Management: The Challenge of Study Operations

A conceptual approach for blended leadership for tertiary education institutions

“…In the United States, the focus has been upon the contribution of distributed leadership to achieving change in secondary schools (Camburn, Rowan, & Taylor, 2003;Leithwood, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management 419 Mascall, & Strauss, 2009;Spillane, 2006;Spillane, Camburn, Pustejovsky, Pareja, & Lewis, 2009;Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2004). Research in the United Kingdom has extended into the 'further and higher education' sectors on the presumption that distributed leadership is an extension of the collegiality often associated with academia (Bennett, Wise, Woods, & Harvey, 2003;Harris, 2004Harris, , 2008.…”

Rethinking distributed leadership: dimensions, antecedents and team effectiveness

“…This leadership configuration, in which collaborating agents may be coalitions of individuals and teams, acting in close proximity, or across a number of sites, accounts for one of the hybrid forms both within and between organizational units identified by Gronn (2009), Distributed and centralized leadership (Pearce et al 2008) can be seen as end points of a continuum, because when the extent of distribution is low enough, the leadership style tends to be centralized. Leadership aggregation is 'minimalist' DL, with responsibility shared among others in a 'leader-plus' manner (Spillane et al 2006) such as in co-leadership, or leader partnerships. DL can be dispersed and 'numerical', or conjoint and 'concertive' (Gronn 2002).…”

“…Their findings indicate that here leadership plays a key role, influencing both school climate and teacher capacities and motivations, especially in schools facing difficult -7 situations. Similarly, Spillane et al (2001Spillane et al ( , 2006 make claims for U.S. school leadership: leadership shifted according to need, leader roles resided with those with expert authority for designated tasks, and collaborative teams with fluid membership-including parents and students-formed across staff and disciplines for specific purposes according to task, role and talent. Nevertheless, as Harris (2008:184) points out, 'it remains questionable how far distributed cognition provides us with a robust theory of distributed leadership'.…”

“…However, cognitive limitations may inhibit team members from dealing with knowledge intensive tasks independently; more cooperative relations are then needed to share information and enhance -20 interpersonal learning (Pearce and Conger 2003). As a result, authority is allocated, in either a conjoint or shared way, to give rise to the co-performance of leadership and interdependencies that shape leadership practice (Spillane et al 2006). In order to absorb knowledge from the environment, leadership practices need to go far beyond the current structural boundaries of the team (Harris 2008), which probably creates dynamic and diversified interactions within the team system.…”

University Science and Mathematics Education in Transition

“…• The notion of distributed leadership (Bennett et al, 2003;Henry, 2006;Spillane et al, 2006). Distributed leadership theory provides a different framework from which to analyze all the influences referred to above and will now be described briefly.…”