THEORETICAL FRAMING
3.2. TOWARDS A THEORY OF EDUCATION LEADERSHIP: A DISTRIBUTED PERSPECTIVE DISTRIBUTED PERSPECTIVE
3.2.3. Distributed leadership conceptualised as social practice
As my study progressed, I realised that the description of distributed leadership used in the first, second and fifth chronicles was limited in scope and required extension in order for it to be of more use as an explanatory tool in my research. Drawing on the work of Wenger (1998) and Morrow (2007), I introduced the idea in the fourth chronicle that “education leadership should be viewed as a practice, a shared activity” (p. 52)55 in which “all can practice” (Chronicle 4, p. 52)56. I argued that the practice of leadership should be characterised by learning as social participation through mutual engagement and the negotiation of meaning where participation is the process of “being active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities” (Wenger, 1998, p. 4). Within the practice of leadership in schools, I worked from the premise that “obviously SMT members are integral to this leadership practice but so are teachers” (Chronicle 4, p.
52)57. In conceptualising this practice of leadership, I found Wenger’s concept of
‘legitimate peripheral participation’ useful in relation to the positioning of people within the practice and I argued that “educators with leadership experience (whether SMT members or teachers) should lead the practice and invited newcomers to join”
(Chronicle 4, p. 52)58. This constituted legitimate peripheral participation of the newcomers in the practice of leadership as they engaged with the full participants and learnt the language and rules of the practice.
The practice of school leadership, Spillane et al argue, has received limited attention in the research literature” (2004, p. 3). However, my study suggests that conceptualising school leadership as a distributed practice offers a valuable explanatory framing for researchers working in the field of education leadership.
Building on the idea of leadership as a practice, my conception of distributed leadership draws heavily on the work of James Spillane and his colleagues (2004, 2006). I worked with his definition of distributed leadership as practice in the sixth
55 Section 7.2, p. 222
56 Section 7.2, p. 222
57 Section 7.2, p. 222
58 Section 7.2, p. 222
(pp. 290 - 291)59 and seventh (p. 2)60 chronicles. Spillane (2006) takes a descriptive rather than a normative approach to distributed leadership and argues that a distributed perspective on leadership involves two parts: the leader-plus aspect and the practice aspect. The notion of a leader-plus aspect links closely to the idea of leadership as a group endeavour discussed earlier in this chapter. However, Spillane (2006) argues, while the leader-plus aspect is vital, and includes the leadership contributions of teachers; it is insufficient on its own. While the leader-plus aspect is important because it allows for the social distribution of the leadership enactment (Spillane et al, 2004), the leadership practice aspect is crucial because it is the unit of interest, framed as “a product of the joint interactions of school leaders, followers and aspects of their situation such as tools and routines” (2006, p. 3). Thus, as Timperley explains, a distributed perspective focuses on the “dynamic interactions between multiple leaders and followers” (2005, p. 396) as well as on “artifacts and how they are used” (p. 414). This means that, from a distributed perspective, there are multiple leaders in a school (either leading formally or informally) who interact with followers in particular situations during the practice of leadership.
Working from this perspective in my study, I asserted in the seventh chronicle that leadership “need not be located only in the principal of a school” (p. 2)61 but should be “stretched over multiple leaders” (Spillane, 2006, p. 15). In addition to this ‘leader- plus perspective, I also suggested in the sixth (p. 291)62 and seventh chronicles (p. 2)63 that the distribution of leadership should be conceptualised as a practice, constructed in “the interactions between leaders, followers and situations” (Spillane, 2006, p. 26).
Viewed in this way, I argued in line with Spillane that a distributed perspective on the practice of education leadership “is not a blueprint for doing school leadership more effectively” (2006, p. 9). It is “in and of itself neither good nor bad” (Chronicle 6, p.
291)64, but instead offers a way to investigate “how leadership practice is stretched over two or more leaders and to examine how followers and the situation mutually constitute this practice” (Spillane, 2006, p. 15).
59 Section 5.4, p. 150 - 151
60 Section 5.5, p. 163
61 Section 5.5, p. 163
62 Section 5.4, p. 151
63 Section 5.5, p. 163
64 Section 5.4, p. 151
Thus, from this distributed perspective, the critical issue is not whether leadership is distributed but how it is distributed. The distributed perspective therefore offers a way to investigate ‘how’ leadership practice is stretched over multiple leaders and it also enables us to examine ‘how’ the practice is mutually constituted. However, it must be emphasised that followers are not an influencing factor outside of leadership activity but instead are an “essential constituting element of leadership activity” (Spillane et al, 2004, p. 19). Similarly, the situation (or context) “is not external to leadership activity, but is one of the core constituting elements” (Spillane et al, 2004, p. 20).
Thus, the distributed leadership practice is situated and acknowledges “the mutuality of the individual and the environment” (Spillane et al, 2004, p. 19) in determining the practice. Drawing on the work of Giddens (1979, 1984) and Wertsch (1991), Spillane and his colleagues argue that leadership practice is situated and “cannot be extracted from its socio-cultural context – that it is situated in cultural, historical and institutional settings” (Spillane et al, 2004, p. 22). Furthermore, aspects of the situation include tools, symbols, designed artifacts, language, organisational structure as well as broader societal structures, including race, class and gender. All these aspects of the situation are influencing factors which impact on the constitution of the practice and I discuss this in detail in Chapter Eight of this thesis. Furthermore, this leadership practice framework addresses the relations between structure and human agency where structure refers to “the various elements which individuals must contend with when forming the action” and when human agency refers to “the actions of individuals within the context of (and, in fact, through) structure” (Spillane et al, 2004, p. 10).
The benefits of framing an analysis of leadership practice in this way, is that the distributed leadership perspective can become “a tool that can enable change in leadership activity” (Spillane et al, 2004, p. 5). Said slightly differently, a distributed perspective offers a way of “getting under the skin of leadership practice, of seeing leadership practice differently and illuminating the possibilities for organisational transformation” (Harris and Spillane, 2008, p. 33). Thus, in defining distributed leadership, Spillane et al, contend that:
Leadership activity is constituted in the interaction of multiple leaders (and followers) using particular tools and artifacts around particular leadership tasks. In this scheme, what is critical are the interdependencies (authors’
emphasis) among the constitutive elements – leaders, followers, and the situation – of leadership activity (2004, p. 16).
Within this framing of distributed leadership as practice lies the possibility of a variety of relationships and connections between and amongst people, depending on the situation at hand. In order to clarify further the nature of relationships between leaders and followers in particular situations, I found Gunter’s (2005) characterisations of distributed leadership useful to describe and explain the nature of the relationships and the location of power within the practice of leadership in my study. I now move on in the next section to present these characterisations of distributed leadership. However, I keep this discussion relatively brief because the entire Chapter Ten of this thesis is dedicated to the insights gathered through the application of the characterisations during the synthesis process in my study.