Making Distributive Leadership Work March 5, 2013

By Jose Enrique Lopez, Assistant Principal, AAMA/Sanchez Charter School

In a school setting, faculty, staff and students commonly understand that those in leadership roles typically exhibit high levels of knowledge, skills, and talents. In education at the local level, those leaders are district superintendents or school principals. However, the reality of any successful leadership model in a 21st century public school is now starting to rely more and more on the capacity of that particular district or school leader to generate and establish the concept of distributive leadership.

Real sharing of leadership responsibilities and functions could be the simple way to define distributive leadership. In a school distributive leadership model, every individual, faculty or staff member, understands the value and importance of his or her daily responsibilities and functions. Every individual at the school or district assumes the role of a leader. In the words of my head school principal, John De la Cruz, at AAMA/Sanchez Charter School, “…everyone in the school needs to understand that he or she is also the principal in our school building.” For instance, the teacher who makes over a thousand decisions in a given instructional day is also deploying the knowledge and skills of a school leader. The teacher facilitator or instruction specialist who supports, coaches and consults with those teachers over the best instructional practices and researched-based learning strategies is also the leader of a school in his or her own specialized role. Distributive leadership is a collaborative effort that involves integrating every school system and daily tasks to perform and achieve the necessary results at the end of the school year.

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