What is distributed leadership Why is it essential to Head Teachers today ITfC presentation at workshop of Bengaluru South 3 HMS at GHS Konapanna Agrahara on July 2015

1. Head Teachers Community of Learning (TCOL)
Bengaluru South 3 Block
Decentralised Leadership
– necessary for todays dynamic complexity
ITfC
July 2015

2. Industrial age schools in Information Age
● Schools and school systems were designed in an industrial age
and were relatively stable. Now, in the information age, school
systems have grown complex, unpredictable and uncertain. For
example, school leaders face many conflicting assumptions
about what is wrong with schools and how to fix them
● (Information age – ICTs disrupting systems, institutions and
processes on a wide scale and rapidly – media, government,
business)

3. School leadership is now more complex
● Leaders’ responsibilities have increased and now include:
● Instructional leadership for student learning
● Human resources leadership for teachers (Staff support and development)
● Community leadership for developing and sustaining a collective vision for the
school (Community support both SDMC and other local institutions)
● Resource leadership for getting fiscal, physical, technological and community
resources
● Administration leadership for working with supervisors, managing local and state
politics; understanding, and applying policy
● Change leadership for identifying gaps between current and desired outcomes,
analyzing underlying problems, balancing competing interests, strategizing and
implementing appropriate changes.

4. Leadership style must change
● Hierarchical leadership strategies have grown increasingly ineffective for
contemporary educational leadership.
● Distributed leadership theory ­ Leadership occurs through many individuals
across the organization. It acknowledges the complexity of school; the diversity,
interdependence of the participants within it; and cultural values of democracy.
● Distributed Leadership in Theory: Seven indicators
– Shared responsibility,
– Shared authority,
– Synergy,
– Leadership capacity,
– Organizational learning,
– equitable and ethical climate and
– macro­community engagement.

5. Shared responsibility
– Distributed leadership theory regards leadership as the aggregated or
synchronized behavior of many individuals rather than an assigned role
– The involvement of teachers and stakeholders in decision­making
facilitates leadership skills and develops the capacity for understanding
the complexities and challenges of sustaining leadership over time.
● Shared authority
– Shift from command and control to democratic principles of
participation, empowerment, dialogue, and cooperation ­ Interpersonal
synergies solidify as participants develop mutual understandings and
strong group norms; intentionally
● Synergy
– Teachers share, overlap their roles; and do spontaneous collaboration.
Relationships take on a greater importance than roles (ghsa)

6. ● Leadership capacity
– Leadership is a collective achievement based on the contributions of every participant.
The leadership capacity of an organization depends on the collective knowledge, skills
of its members. Those who practice distributed leadership ethically use themselves and
others as instruments for achieving goals, encouraging the assumption of responsibility
at every level, and discouraging passive follower ship. It becomes critical to invest in,
develop, and maximize participants’ abilities.
● Organizational learning
– Information is facts and figures; knowledge is a state of awareness that exists within
and among people. Because leading and managing are knowledge­based activities, a
collectively led organization must also collectivize the process of creating, sharing, and
applying knowledge. . Participants view themselves as interconnected not isolated, take
ownership of problems and responsibility for change, share common values,
collaboratively construct meaning,and hold mutual beliefs that they work together for
the good of the whole

7. ● Equitable and ethical climate
– Expanding the decision­making process to include those who will be
affected by and have to implement decisions increases the likelihood
that the consequences of decisions – good or bad – will not fall
disproportionately to any one group.
● Macro­community engagement
– Distributive leadership takes a systemic perspective. It not only
concerns itself with the interconnectedness of immediate participants
but also considers the organization as situated in its external
environment.
– Distributive leaders are connective leaders, who perceive complex
connections among people and organizations, and seeing their
environment as networks of exchange and reciprocity.
– I CANT DO ALL THIS ALONE!!!

8. ● When I hear a fellow participant talking about the problems at his or her school, then I
chime in with my own parallel problems. We collaboratively think through issues, like
how will we make our curriculum at our schools our own? How will we deal with the
tone of our school, the diversity?
● NCSL believes that the on­line community is incredibly critical to the success of its
work and to sustaining ongoing leadership development among participants. It’s a vital
piece of nearly every programme offering. It creates a space for dialogue. It’s a forum
for current available knowledge. It facilitates conversation. It has powerful collaborative
potential.
● The idea of the school HM promoting a professional learning community for all
stakeholders is vital. Having a professional learning community that grows and
improves over time contributes to sustainable leadership because stakeholders have an
understanding of the vision and an investment in the long­term growth of the
individuals that constitute the entire school community.
Community of learners
Block level collective of HMs + school level collective of teachers

9. ●Culture of learning.
● To make sense of the context, the needs, priorities and diverse expectations
● Shallow­deep learning model, we reject the shallow, which focuses on
memorization, information, replication, extrinsic rewards, compliance, dependence .
. . and embrace deep learning, which focuses on dialogue, reflection, linkages
between theory and practice, the use of expert professionals, and the like. In our
programmes we emphasize skills, like listening, dialogue, engagement
● School leaders learn how to create shared meaning with their staff. They come to
realize that the adult pedagogies can be translated into their curriculum and change
the pedagogies that they use to instruct children.
● Leaders have a responsibility to develop their colleagues. Therefore, they train and
encourage experienced leaders to develop schools as professional learning
communities to build the next generation of leaders

10. ●Culture of learning.
● To make sense of the context, the needs, priorities and diverse expectations
● Shallow­deep learning model, we reject the shallow, which focuses on
memorization, information, replication, extrinsic rewards, compliance, dependence .
. . and embrace deep learning, which focuses on dialogue, reflection, linkages
between theory and practice, the use of expert professionals, and the like. In our
programmes we emphasize skills, like listening, dialogue, engagement
● School leaders learn how to create shared meaning with their staff. They come to
realize that the adult pedagogies can be translated into their curriculum and change
the pedagogies that they use to instruct children.
● Leaders have a responsibility to develop their colleagues. Therefore, they train and
encourage experienced leaders to develop schools as professional learning
communities to build the next generation of leaders