Distributed leadership through the looking glass

This article focuses on the theme of distributed leadership in schools. It questions what distributed leadership can offer schools and explores the reasons for its current popularity.The article looks at distributed leadership through three lenses - the theoretical, the practical and the empirical. It highlights some of the tensions inherent in a distributed model of leadership practice. The article reviews some of the evidence which points towards a positive relationship between organisational development and distributed leadership. The article concludes that purposeful distribution of leadership is already a feature of many improving schools and that broader and deeper leadership distribution is associated with positive school outcomes.