Distributed Leadership in Educational Institutions

Abstract

In recent years, many studies are conducted about shared leadership process. Distributed leadership (DL) approach addresses leadership along with teams, groups and organizational characteristics. In practice, this approach objects the supposition that an individual should take the lead in order to ensure change. Proponents of this idea claim that shared leadership is required since educational institutions are too complex to be managed with only one individual. Responsibility for managing various complex tasks in organizations is distributed among a myriad of individuals with different roles. The basic principle advocated in this approach is based on the futility of efforts to ascertain a series of best single leader characteristics or best single leader behaviors. Current study aims to provide information on distributed leadership and discuss the applicability of the concept in educational organizations.