Practice 3: Shared Leadership

Shared leadership and decision-making is increasingly prevalent in professional learning communities, where leadership is distributed and broadened among all members of the school community (Elmore, 2000; Lambert, 1998, 2003; Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 1999). Empowerment of teachers, parents, students and community is essential if they are to become fully functioning members of the learning community. In a democracy such as ours, the more the leadership is shared and expressed, the better it is presumed to be (Sergiovanni, 2001, p. 146).

Hargreaves and Fink (2006) contend that professional learning communities "embody the most positive features of distributed leadership, bringing the energy and ability of the whole community forward to serve the best interest of all students" (p.128). Building leadership capacity and structures in support of shared governance represent innovative, visionary elements of the school improvement process in creating and sustaining professional learning communities. "The organization that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people’s commitment and capacity to learn and lead at all levels in an organization" (Senge, 1990, p. 4). Sustainability in organizations focuses on the way that the system constantly spawns leadership and commitment in all areas by fostering the intelligence, purpose and passion of all members of the organization (Fullan, 2003).

In schools with shared leadership, the administrator’s role has also changed significantly. Traditional school leaders possess an authoritarian, bureaucratic style of leadership, while progressive school administrators relinquish some of their authority and responsibility for leadership to others (Sergiovanni, 2001). Capacity building is about the administrator giving people the training, resources and opportunity to pursue tasks, and then to hold them accountable (Lambert, 2003). "Leaders have to think constantly about giving the work back to the people who need to take the responsibility" (Heifetz & Linsky, 2002, p. 139). Capacity building principals are collaborative and inclusive and have the capacity to work with others by influencing, facilitating, guiding and mentoring (Lambert, 2003). The principal works throughout the school organization to strengthen relationships and continually guide the vision. The principal can motivate teachers toward community of practice participation by shaping a commonly-held vision of where the school wants to go and by supporting the work of the teachers to enact the vision (Printy, 2004). The teachers accept leadership and take responsibility for their own learning.

Action Plan Example for Practice 3: