A few months ago I sat in a staff meeting where roles were announced: I was made the academic head; colleagues were named heads of co-curricular activities, assessment, pedagogy, and community outreach. On paper it looked like a dream — leadership spread across the campus, expertise acknowledged, responsibility shared. In that moment the idea of distributive leadership stopped being an abstract slogan I’d read about and became something I experienced. I felt the energy and the potential. But I also felt a familiar friction: the headings felt more like job titles than true authority. We were collaborating — but who actually had the power to make the hard calls?

That contradiction — collaboration without clear authority — sits at the heart of many schools’ attempts to distribute leadership. Below I unpack what distributive leadership is, why it’s powerful, why it often feels “shared-but-not-authoritative,” and practical moves to close that gap.

What is distributive leadership (briefly)?

Distributive leadership shifts the view of leadership from a single heroic individual to a process that emerges through interactions among people doing the core work of the school. Instead of leadership being only what the principal “does,” it’s seen as activities and influence that flow across teachers, middle leaders, and administrators tied to the real tasks of teaching and learning. This perspective emphasises relationships, routines and how authority is enacted in daily practice.  

Why schools try it — the upside

There are good reasons the idea has taken hold. When leadership is distributed:

1. Expertise across the school is tapped — teachers closest to the classroom lead curriculum and pedagogy decisions; others lead community engagement or assessment design. This broadens the knowledge base for decisions.  
    
2. Decision-making can be faster and better informed because it’s closer to the problem. Teams can innovate and iterate without waiting for top-down approval.  
    
3. It builds capacity: teachers get leadership experience, which supports retention, professional growth and creates leadership pipelines for the future.  

These benefits are why I felt hopeful in that meeting: distributed leadership promises to make schools more responsive, creative and resilient.

So why does it sometimes feel like “shared-but-not-authoritative”?

This is the tricky part. Many implementations slide into what looks like delegation — the principal assigns “heads” but retains decision power, or systems are redistributed without corresponding authority or resources. The result is a façade of sharing: responsibilities are named, but real authority — the ability to set timelines, allocate budgets or make final decisions — remains tightly held. Critics of distributed models have noted that if power and accountability aren’t deliberately redesigned, distributed leadership can become symbolic rather than systemic.   

From my own meeting, the signs were subtle but important: we were asked for input, but the budget and final policy authority still rested with a small group; decisions that required cross-departmental trade-offs reverted back to the principal. Collaboration was real — but sovereignty over outcomes often was not.

How to move from “shared tasks” to genuine distributive leadership

If your school wants the benefits of distributed leadership without the tokenism, consider practical moves that address both structure and practice:

1. Clarify decision rights and boundaries. Give teams explicit authority for agreed domains (e.g., assessment design, timetable adjustments). A named role without decision rights is a glorified coordinator. (Evidence shows that effective distribution requires clear allocation of responsibilities and authority.)  
    
2. Align resources to roles. Authority needs resourcing — time, budget, and access to data. If someone is the head of pedagogy, give them meeting time, data reports, and a modest discretionary budget to pilot ideas.  
    
3. Design shared accountability mechanisms. Distributed leadership works when teams are accountable for outcomes, not just activities. Use shared metrics and regular reporting loops so authority and accountability travel together.  
    
4. Build relational infrastructure. Distributed leadership is enacted through relationships. Invest in cross-team meetings, protocols for decision-making, and routines that create trust and mutual influence. Without this, roles stay siloed.  
    
5. Lead as a coach, not an owner. Senior leaders must model relinquishing control: set strategic priorities, then coach teams as they exercise authority. This takes discipline and a willingness to accept risk. Research and practitioner accounts both point to leadership-as-practice rather than leadership-as-position.   

A short personal takeaway

Being named academic head gave me legitimacy to coordinate curriculum work and to convene colleagues. But legitimacy alone didn’t create authority to change long-standing processes. The difference, I learned, lies in whether my role carried formal decision-rights, resources, and shared accountability. Distributive leadership isn’t simply a rebranding of job titles — it’s a redesign of who holds what power, how decisions are made, and how responsibility for outcomes is shared.

When those pieces align, distributive leadership stops being just an inspiring phrase and becomes the engine that improves teaching and learning. When they don’t, the model risks being “shared” in name only: collaborative in tone but not in transformational power.