Initiative-based quality development and the role of distributed leadership

This book analyses the complex power dynamics and interpersonal politics that lie at the heart of leadership in professional organizations, such as accounting, law, and consulting firms, investment banks, hospitals, and universities. It is based on scholarly research into many of the world’s leading professional organizations across a range of sectors, including interviews with over 500 senior professionals in sixteen countries. Drawing on the latest academic theory to analyse exactly how professionals in organizations come together to create ‘leadership’, it provides new insights into how leaders lead when there is no traditional hierarchy to support them, their own authority is contingent, and they must constantly renegotiate relationships with relatively autonomous professional peers. It explores how leaders persuade highly intelligent, educated, and opinionated professionals to work together; how change happens within professional organizations; and why leaders so often fail. Part I introduces the concept of plural leadership, analysing how leaders establish and maintain their positions within leadership constellations, and the implications for governance in the context of collective or distributed leadership. Part II examines the complex, challenging relationships between professionals as they seek to influence their organizations, including the phenomena of leadership dyads, insecure overachievers, social control, and the rise of the management professional. Part III examines the shifts in the locus of power as professional organizations grow, adapt, and react to external stimuli such as mergers and acquisitions and economic crises. The conclusion identifies the paradoxes inherent in professional organizations and examines the role of leaders in attempting to reconcile them.

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How Artefacts Do Leadership: A Ventriloquial Analysis

Management Communication Quarterly ◽

10.1177/0893318921998078 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 089331892199807

Author(s):

Jonathan Clifton ◽

Fernando Fachin ◽

François Cooren

Keyword(s):

Organizational Communication ◽

Recent Work ◽

Distributed Leadership ◽

Network Theory ◽

Actor Network Theory ◽

Fine Grained ◽

Naturally Occurring ◽

Human Actors

To date there has been little work that uses fine-grained interactional analyses of the in situ doing of leadership to make visible the role of non-human as well as human actants in this process. Using transcripts of naturally-occurring interaction as data, this study seeks to show how leadership is co-achieved by artefacts as an in-situ accomplishment. To do this we situate this study within recent work on distributed leadership and argue that it is not only distributed across human actors, but also across networks that include both human and non-human actors. Taking a discursive approach to leadership, we draw on Actor Network Theory and adopt a ventriloquial approach to sociomateriality as inspired by the Montreal School of organizational communication. Findings indicate that artefacts “do” leadership when a hybrid presence is made relevant to the interaction and when this presence provides authoritative grounds for influencing others to achieve the group’s goals.

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Distributed leadership and administrative processes as determinants of public universities’ effectiveness

Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences ◽

10.18844/cjes.v16i5.6205 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (5) ◽

pp. 2070-2090

Author(s):

David Jimoh Kayode ◽

Suraiya Rathankoomar Naicker

Keyword(s):

Distributed Leadership ◽

Public Universities ◽

Public University ◽

University Education ◽

University System ◽

Administrative Process ◽

Mediating Role ◽

The Impact

The quality of students who graduated from Nigerian universities and the role played by universities in the growth of society is a significant concern to every stakeholder. This study examined the impact of distributed leadership on the effectiveness of public universities and the mediating role of the quality administrative process. A correlational survey research design was adopted. A total of 450 lecturers were sampled and were given questionnaire of which 346 questionnaire were returned and, only 305 questionnaires were usable after the data cleaning. The results of the analysis showed that distributed leadership does not directly connect to institutional effectiveness. Furthermore, it is evident that administrative process intervenes in the correlation between distributed leadership and public university effectiveness. The findings imply that the various leaders at the unit level, departmental, faculty, and university-wide must ensure quality administrative processes to bring about the desired University system in the country. Keywords: Distributed leadership, administrative process, university education, Nigeria, smartpls, hierarchical model;

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Open Data, Distributed Leadership and Food Security: The Role of Women Smallholder Farmers

10.1108/s2058-880120210000001016 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 273-293

Author(s):

Éliane Ubalijoro ◽

Victor N. Sunday ◽

Foteini Zampati ◽

Uchechi Shirley Anaduaka ◽

Suchith Anand

Keyword(s):

Food Security ◽

Distributed Leadership ◽

Smallholder Farmers ◽

Open Data ◽

Role Of Women

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Mapping four leadership styles in Japan: how has the role of the principal been shaped by policies?

Journal of Educational Administration ◽

10.1108/jea-03-2019-0032 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 187-207

Author(s):

Hirokazu Yokota

Keyword(s):

Instructional Leadership ◽

Leadership Styles ◽

School Leadership ◽

Distributed Leadership ◽

Educational Administration ◽

Policy Documents ◽

Content Type ◽

Western View ◽

Role Of The Principal

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how internationally recognized styles of transactional, instructional, transformational and distributed leadership have emerged in the Japanese education system. Design/methodology/approach National legislation and policy documents in Japan since 1945 were collected by searching for the word “principal” or “head of school.” Then, four types are excluded: those that are unique only to one school type, do not explicitly deal with the role of the principal, are in subordinate laws prescribing contents that essentially overlap with those in superordinate statutes and define procedural roles of the principal. As a result, 17 legal provisions and 35 policy documents remained, each of which was analyzed by using four leadership styles. Findings Despite an increasing focus on instructional, transformational and distributed styles, Japan has not comprehensively articulated attributes and abilities expected of the principal. Additionally, a movement away from instructional leadership in the 2000s contrasts with the recent emphasis on “educational leadership.” Moreover, transformational leadership has centered on the school–family–community collaboration and the expansion of principal autonomy, and distributed leadership has taken the forms of new positions that support the principal, both of which were influenced by the decentralization movement. Research limitations/implications It points to the susceptibility of the role of the principal in Japan and western countries alike to broader structural reforms but with different implications and distinct timing of the advent of leadership styles among them. Additionally, Japan has adopted a modified approach to distributed leadership style, which is somewhat similar to delegation, to make a compromise between the emergent theory and the centrality of the principal in the school hierarchy. Furthermore, instructional leadership seems to be a “late bloomer” in Japan because of its practice-based nature and unsuitability to daily realities of the principal. Originality/value As an arguably unprecedented attempt to apply leadership styles to legislation and policy documents, this study builds a foundation for understanding how school leadership is shaped by education policies. Moreover, while making connections to the western view, it creates a paradigm for future studies of school leadership in Japan and in the field of comparative educational administration.

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Distributed leadership and organizational commitment: moderating role of confidence and affective climate

European Business Review ◽

10.1108/ebr-04-2018-0073 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Sinda Ben Sedrine ◽

Amel Sabra Bouderbala ◽

Myryam Hamdi

Keyword(s):

Organizational Commitment ◽

Organizational Climate ◽

Distributed Leadership ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Essential Element ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Content Type ◽

Digital World ◽

Affective Climate

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of distributed leadership on organizational commitment and the role of trust and open group climate as moderator variables in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach To test the conceptual model and research hypotheses empirically, the authors collected data based on an investigation over a sample of 318 engineers in the Information Technology telecommunication sector in Tunisia. The results were analyzed using factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings The results show a significant and positive impact of the support function, of the participation in decision-making and cooperation on organizational commitment. The authors find evidence for the existence of a positive moderating effect of trust and affective climate at the level of the causal link between distributed leadership and organizational commitment dimensions. Research limitations/implications These results provide useful indications for managers within the framework of leadership style that is more appropriate to the group’s proper functioning. Throughout this work, managers will know that distributed leadership is adapted to create a social climate based on dialogue and trust, an essential element of distributed leadership. Supervision and authority should give up a coercive vision in a more cooperative and constructive approach. Coordination should be founded on a horizontal and transversal vision of the organization. Originality/value Distributed leadership is increasingly seen as a key vehicle for firms’ improvement and renewal. However, research on this concept was largely conducted in the field of education and health. Studies dealing with small and medium-sized companies are rather scarce. There are not, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, any works in the Tunisian context because the majority of the reference studies are Anglo-Saxon. The originality and value of this research lies in its anchoring in the context. Moreover, this study provides empirical evidence of the importance of the role of the affective climate on organizational commitment. Indeed, engagement is a behavioral and attitudinal indicator of organizational climate. This paper is intended to provide a stimulus for exploring the distributed leadership area in terms of shaping thinking and designs for organizational change to enhance organizational commitment in a highly digital world.

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The Effect of Principal’s Distributed Leadership Practice on Students’ Academic Achievement: A Systematic Review of the Literature

International Journal of Higher Education ◽

10.5430/ijhe.v9n1p189 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 189

Author(s):

Ghirmai Jambo Daniel ◽

Hongde Lei

Keyword(s):

Academic Achievement ◽

Best Practices ◽

Distributed Leadership ◽

Review Of The Literature ◽

Leadership Practice ◽

Principal's Role ◽

Contemporary World ◽

Role Of Principal ◽

Do So

Distributed leadership as a new scenario of educational leadership has become a popular topic in the contemporary world. Many notable researchers and members of the discourse community have contributed significantly to its development. However, little attention has paid to its effectiveness. Hence, the main purpose of this article is to analyze the existing evidence for the effect of principal’s leadership practice on students’ academic achievement from a distributed perspective. To do so, a systematic search of academic databases was conducted and 68 references spanning from the year 2001 to 2018 were selected and systematically reviewed. Due consideration was given to their concepts of distributed leadership practice, principal’s role, and students’ academic achievement. The findings of this article show that distributed leadership has positive and indirect effect on students’ academic achievement and the role of principal is indispensable. Nevertheless, there is little emperical evidence, a lack of universal accepted patterns and best practices of distributed leadership which strains further investigation. On the basis of evidence currently available, it seems reasonable to recommend scholars, policy developers, and practitioners to recognize the role of principal on distributed leadership and its best practices.

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