Distributive Leadership

What is Distributive Leadership?

Distributive leadership is when a leadership role is defined in detail as many responsibilities and then those responsibilities are given to several individuals. Each individual is held accountable for his or her assigned share. Some experts believe this is the leadership process of the future, some believe that this is the leadership process that creates too many queen bees and not enough worker bees. 

Why does Distributive Leadership work?

This process of leadership is successful in the school environment for many reasons. The first and most important is that those with the responsibility roles can focus in on his or her area and become the "expert." Subordinates know who to go to and know that the person they are going to is well-educated in that area of inquiry. For instance, in most schools, the disciplinarian is the Vice Principal. This person is educated in different techniques and process to deal with many situations. Teachers can rely on this person to help them with their classroom behavior issues that are outside the normal scope of classroom management. Another example would be the Academic Coach. This person is responsible for knowing all of the standardized curriculum and know how to mentor teachers on how to present the curriculum to their students. 

Another reason that this process works is the burn out factor. Leaders do not become overwhelmed or "burn out" to soon or easily. Many elementary school principals get burned out very easily because elementary schools do not have the staff or resources that a middle school, junior high school, or high school have. To be able to delegate some of the responsibility to support staff and teacher leaders, the principal can focus in our areas that need more attention or need to be fixed. The delegated staff then can have more responsibility and can grow in their own professional advancement.

Why does Distributive Leadership not work?

This process of leadership does not always work when an organization does not have the right people in the right seats on the school bus as the saying goes. Some individuals are not fitted for some responsibilities. If a person has many projects in the works and starts to panic, they may not be best suited for a multi-task responsibility. 

Another way this does not work is that an organization becomes reliable on one person for an area of expertise. If something were to happen to that person or if that person suddenly quit his or her employment, the company would not have a back-up person. I have personally experienced this at a previous employment and it took the staff about six months to pick up the pieces when the accounting manager suddenly died from complications of colon cancer surgery. Not only was the company dealing with the grief of loosing one of its employees that had been there the longest, but it was also dealing with not knowing how he did his job. After that every employee had to have a back-up person that was knowledgeable in his or her job duties.

Does my school use this process of leadership?

When I first started teaching, it was in a mainstream elementary school. This school did not use distributive leadership. This school had a principal that was at school every morning by 6 a.m. and did not leave until after 7 p.m. every day. She was a newer principal and was trying to do it all herself. I saw her bite the heads off of students and staff regularly. I account this to being overwhelmed and stressed out. 

The schools I have taught at since this were charter schools. At both charter schools I have been at distributive leadership is used very well. There is not just a principal in the school. There is a school director, an academic director, a discipline director, an enrollment director, an upper elementary director, a lower elementary director, a testing director, and a human resource director just to name the directors. It is amazing at how well all of these individuals work together to bring a cohesiveness to our school. Each person has his or her own area of expertise and every parent and employee is given a matrix of who to go to for what. It would be very confusing if we did not have the matrix.