Plenary Session I: Strengthening the Teaching Profession for the 21st Century
Distributed Leadership: Leadership in Context
Carole Kayrooz, Pro Vice-Chancellor Education, University of Canberra
Distributed leadership in education can be sourced as a concept to situation-specific psychological theories developed in the mid-20th century. Its resurgence in the West in recent times springs from an ageing demographic, and consequent skills shortages and succession crises. Distributed leadership focuses on collaborative action towards a goal, arising naturally, and passing between one and the other as the situation changes. This presentation focuses on the necessary components of distributed leadership: the systems for concerted action (institutionalized turn taking; task/responsibility rotation); the culture of interpersonal synergy (parity of relations, participation by all); and the institutionalized structures to regularize the distribution of power (minimal structures, multiple agents, and formalized devils' advocacy). The presentation will trace the origin of distributed leadership, review the research related to it, detailing the systems, culture and structures that foster distributed leadership, and describe passionately its necessity in addressing the educational challenges of the 21st century.
Download the paper (pdf, 44kb) and presentation (pdf, 50kb)