Distributed leadership: taking a retrospective and contemporary view of the evidence base

Distributed leadership represents one of the most influential ideas to emerge in the field of educational leadership, prompted by the foundational and seminal work of Spillane et al. (2001). The idea of distributed leadership has found favor with researchers, policy-makers practitioners and educational reformers around the globe and has captured the attention of many international researchers (e.g., Spillane, 2006; Harris, 2008; Leithwood et al., 2009; Gronn, 2002). Few ideas, it seems, have provoked so much attention, debate, and controversy, in the field of educational leadership, as distributed leadership.