Leadership is fashionable: from ex-military tough guys like Ant Middleton and sporting heroes like Sir Alex Ferguson to academics who have researched different styles and approaches, leadership seems to be omnipresent in our culture. 

Podcasts, TED talks, inspirational speakers and a growing number of Sunday Times bestsellers are about that amorphous art - becoming a better leader.

In schools, more and more senior positions are seeking individuals with Master’s degrees in educational leadership, or evidence of explicit “leadership training”. The complexities of leadership theory are huge, but the language of leadership is becoming more widely understood. 

Distributed leadership: leading together

Like many things, what is seen as “good” in leadership theory is cyclical; whereas organisations once yearned for the charismatic, singular force of nature who instilled awe in followers, the 21st-century has seen a softer, more distributive model of leadership become in vogue.

Leadership is no longer about a select group’s skills and abilities, but an entire school’s.  

From this comes the idea of distributed leadership. It is a fairly modern concept that involves hierarchies being “flattened”, and power being shared throughout an organisation. 

In schools, for example, that might mean an assistant headteacher noticing the digital video-making skills of a gifted NQT and sharing power with that teacher in order to better complete a task.

Some theorists see it as a cynical way to “get the job done” without management rolling up their sleeves and pitching in - others as a creative way to maximise human resources and grow other people in the process.

Don’t call it delegation

Notice the word “share”, not “delegate”, for delegation can be the enemy of distributed leadership.

Delegation says, “Here is a task I do not want; can you do it for me?” whereas distributed leadership says, “I am confident in myself and therefore will share power with you, not just a task: I want to see you grow.”

The difference between the two is subtle but also exceedingly difficult to do successfully. Delegation can destroy trust, whereas distribution creates it. 

This perhaps all sounds great in theory but to distribute authentically is tough.

Too often, quixotic notions of distribution quickly become task delegation; we have all worked for a senior who is happy telling us what to do, but less happy sharing out some of the perks his or her status brings.

The right job for the right person

Another potential issue highlighted in some quarters is that leadership is distributed at the wrong time, to the wrong person, and this can be catastrophic. 

Why so bad? Because it can lead to individuals feeling out of their depth, overwhelmed and the task not getting done at all. 

Another issue can be our own expectations of what good leadership “looks like”. 

There is surely something in many of us that imagines effective school leaders as forces of nature, lone warriors bestriding corridors and holding the whole school under their spell.

These traditional notions of leadership are in some ways hardwired from our youth; if Luke Skywalker shared out his Jedi mastery to a selection of willing Ewoks, Star Wars would have left us feeling a little short-changed.

It’s not invisible

Distribution “looks” completely different, and so is therefore sometimes critiqued as being “invisible leadership” - if a headteacher, for example, is sharing tasks and the attached power that comes with those tasks out across a hierarchy, what exactly is that head doing themselves?

To some, this “invisible” leadership brings into question the very nature of hierarchy as well as economics; why pay someone more than someone else if they share out the work they are rewarded to do? 

I have worked with pure distributors, completely comfortable with identifying talent elsewhere in the school and empowering that talent, handing their power over without a second thought.

When the stars align, the impact can be huge. 

I have also worked with the antithesis of the distributor; the cagey autocrat, sceptical of the skills and abilities of others but sure of themselves. These leaders have their place, though can leave underlings feeling just like that - an underling. 

Often, these leaders struggle to work in teams and develop others but also thrive in crisis situations.

Why it’s worth getting right

Ultimately, then, how can distributed leadership benefit schools? 

Firstly, it gives a voice to those beyond the top tier of a static hierarchy.

When done well, it can leverage leadership in junior colleagues that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and build a sense of ownership in initiatives, though it must be carried out by leaders who believe in it; it requires patience and the ability to see process, not just task completion, as accomplishment. 

School models such as professional learning communities are good examples of this, and more and more research is recommending them as the most effective way to professionally develop teachers, as well as grow leadership across a school. 

Distributed leadership is seemingly here to stay, but it needs to be interdependent with confident, experienced school leaders who do not fear taking responsibility themselves for decisions and tough choices.

Andy Bayfield is the teaching and learning leader at an international school in Malaysia