Distributed Leadership Models Enhancing Collaborative Decision making in Educational Institutions

Abstract

The old centralized and hierarchical decision-making models are inadequate in the rapidly changing educational landscape in terms of complexity and dynamism (Nakata, 2013) when it comes to modern educational institutions. The rise of distributed leadership is one such progressive framework for leadership which allocates leadership responsibilities equally among the stakeholders including the teachers, administrators and students to foster collective ownership and higher institutional excellence. In this paper, we investigate about how distributed leadership models lead to collaborative decision making to any educational setting. The paper draws on a comprehensive literature review and is qualitatively informed by case studies and illustrates the benefits, challenges, and practical ways for the organization to adopt distributed leadership. It is found that if distributed leadership is effectively employed, it encourages shared responsibility, increases teacher morale and results into smarter, more inclusive decision making. The study ends by making policy and practice recommendations to embed distributed leadership within schools and higher education institutions