Chapter 1

The Nature of the Beast

Setting the Scene

Adams School on Chicago’s South Side is something of a success story. Serving students from homes well below the poverty line, Adams was in crisis in the late 1980s; only 16 percent of its students scored at or above national norms on standardized tests in reading. A decade later, administrators, teachers, and students at Adams had reason to celebrate. Students had made impressive gains on achievement tests, and attendance rates had improved considerably. Adams had developed a reputation as a success and as a place where teachers wanted to work.

As teachers and administrators at Adams tell the story, things began to change in 1988 when Brenda Williams took over the position of school principal. An assistant principal vividly recalled, “I could remember the very first day that she came in and we had a meeting . . . and it was a meeting that set forth her goal to come here and to make sure that academically we were growing . . . and she set before us the challenge that we have.” Williams, an energetic African American woman, worked diligently during the 1990s to improve teaching and learning at Adams School. In local commentators’, scholars’, and teachers’ telling of the Adams story, Williams gets much of the credit.

The Lure of Leaders in the “Heroics of Leadership” Genre

The Adams story will ring true for consumers of education literature the world over. It is a familiar tale: a charismatic principal takes the helm in a failing school, setting new expectations for students and staff alike and establishing new organizational routines and structures in an effort to make over the school culture. Over time, the principal’s actions contribute to greater teacher satisfaction, higher and shared expectations for student learning among staff, and improved student achievement. Evidence of success begins to accumulate as teachers report greater job satisfaction and higher expectations for student learning.

Deservedly, principals like Williams become the stars of the education world, and their heroic acts become blueprints for “successful” school leadership. The success of these heroes and heroines becomes the subject of academic publications, popular media accounts, education folklore, and even an occasional documentary or movie. In the “heroics of leadership” genre, or the “heroic leader paradigm” (Yukl, 1999, p. 292), charismatic leaders and their gallant acts are center stage; everyone and everything else are at best cast in minor, supporting roles. Even when others are cast in prominent roles, the focus is on the heroic actions of each individual, and by adding together their individual efforts, one gets an account of leadership. Letting go of the myth of individualism is difficult even when leadership tales venture beyond the single hero or heroine to acknowledge the part played by two or more supporting players.

A Distributed Perspective on Leadership: Essential Elements

In this book, I develop a distributed perspective on leadership as an alternative to accounts that equate leadership with the gallant acts of one or more leaders in an organization. My question is this: What does it mean to take a distributed perspective on school leadership? A distributed leadership perspective moves beyond the Superman and Wonder Woman view of school leadership. It is about more than accounting for all the leaders in a school and counting up their various actions to arrive at some more comprehensive account of leadership. Moving beyond the principal or head teacher to include other potential leaders is just the tip of the iceberg, from a distributed perspective.

A distributed perspective is first and foremost about leadership practice (see Figure 1.1). This practice is framed in a very particular way, as a product of the joint interactions of school leaders, followers, and aspects of their situation such as tools and routines. This distributed view of leadership shifts focus from school principals like Brenda Williams and other formal and informal leaders to the web of leaders, followers, and their situations that gives form to leadership practice.

Figure 1.1

Distributed leadership means more than shared leadership. Too frequently, discussions of distributed leadership end prematurely with an acknowledgment that multiple individuals take responsibility for leadership: that there is a leader plus other leaders at work in the school. Though essential, this leader-plus aspect is not sufficient to capture the complexity of the practice of leadership. From a distributed perspective, it is the collective interactions among leaders, followers, and their situation that are paramount. The situation of leadership isn’t just the context within which leadership practice unfolds; it is a defining element of leadership practice. Aspects of a situation—such as the Breakfast Club or the Five-Week Assessment routine at Adams School or a tool like student test data—don’t simply affect or influence what school leaders do, enabling them to practice more or less effectively. These routines and tools are also produced by leadership practice. They mutually constitute leadership practice in interaction with leaders and followers.

In a distributed perspective on leadership, three elements are essential:

• Leadership practice is the central and anchoring concern.
• Leadership practice is generated in the interactions of leaders, followers, and their situation; each element is essential for leadership practice.
• The situation both defines leadership practice and is defined through leadership practice.

From a distributed perspective, leadership involves mortals as well as heroes. It involves the many and not just the few. It is about leadership practice, not simply roles and positions. And leadership practice is about interactions, not just the actions of heroes.

Problems with the Heroics of Leadership

The heroics of leadership genre is problematic for four reasons. First, heroic epics typically equate school leadership with school principals and their valiant actions. While other leaders are sometimes featured in these accounts, they are usually cast in minor, supporting roles. Vital though the school principal is, school leadership does not begin and end with the person in the principal’s office.

Second, most accounts of school leadership pay scant attention to the practice of leadership (Hallinger and Heck, 1996). They dwell mostly on people, structures, functions, routines, and roles. And they focus on the “what” rather than the “how” of leadership, shortchanging how leadership gets done through the ordinary, everyday practices involved in leadership routines and functions. While knowing what leaders do is important, knowing how they do it is also essential in understanding the practice of leadership. For example, recent scholarship implies that school leaders cultivate collaborative culture among teachers (an organizational function that is thought to be critical for school improvement) by setting tasks that involve teachers’ working together (Goldring and Rallis, 1993; Liberman, Falk, and Alexander, 1994; Louis, Marks, and Kruse, 1996). Understanding how leadership practice creates these tasks in the day-to-day work of schools is as important as understanding what strategies help address which functions.

Third, when leadership practice does make it onto the radar screen, it is depicted mostly in terms of the actions, great or otherwise, of one or more leaders. Concentrating on individual actions fails to capture the significance of interactions.

Fourth, in the heroic leadership tradition, leadership is defined chiefly in terms of its outcome. This is problematic because leadership can occur without evidence of its outcome.

Fixating on the Heroic Leader

In many accounts of school leadership, the heroic leadership genre persists, with the school principal or head teacher as the protagonist, sometimes accompanied by assistant principals and others in formal leadership positions. Describing improvements at Adams School in this way is problematic because Brenda Williams did not turn the school around single-handedly. An array of other individuals—other administrators, specialists, and classroom teachers—with tools and routines of various hues were also critical in Adams makeover.

Williams is no slouch; she deserves to be the central character in the story of Adams’s transformation. Yet, as in any good epic, what she did and how she did it depended in good measure on many others, who, by virtue of their formal roles or informal responsibilities, helped lead improvement efforts. Williams acknowledged the crucial role of others when she said, “I just couldn’t do it all.” She explained that she had put in place a group of leaders to help her transform Adams School. She reported, for example, that hiring an assistant to handle student disciplinary matters was critical: “I couldn’t get involved in that day-to-day discipline and focus in on the instruction program too.” A teacher at Adams also points to the importance of others in leading the transformation, remarking, “Starting with Dr. Williams . . . we have a very good team here. If they weren’t who they are, we wouldn’t be who we are. If the administration had not set the tone, we would not have...