Do Followers Desire Distributed Leadership?

Abstract

Distributed leadership is currently a widely studied and discussed topic in education. Distributed leadership is not a top-down leadership approach, as it depends upon both the leader and follower. However, research, to this point, has only focused upon the leader’s perspective. Little to no research has been done on the follower’s perceptions. The purpose of this study is to begin to fill the gap in research by examining the follower’s perception of the distribution of tasks within their scope of work, as well as the effect of distributed leadership on those tasks. “To what extent are teachers receptive to distributed leadership in different areas of their work, or are there areas where teachers want more or less influence (i.e. curriculum, policies, district initiatives, district calendar, salaries, etc.)?” is the question that focuses this study. The data from this study comes from two suburban districts just south of Kansas City, Missouri. Certified staff members from preschool, elementary, middle, and high school, and alternative schools were surveyed. The survey included a measure of distributed leadership at the building level, the amount of current influence teachers perceive they have over various tasks within their scope of work, as well as the desired amount of influence teachers would like to have over those same tasks. This made it possible to determine if there is a relationship between how leadership is distributed and the satisfaction of the follower. Findings suggest that distributed leadership does, in fact, have an impact on closing the gap between perceived and ideal influence – not in all aspects of teachers work, but one in particular (social tasks). Findings show that distributed leadership also has an impact on closing the satisfaction gap for those with higher degrees and males, but only in administrative tasks.