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Leadership and Policy in Schools

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Introduction to Special Issue

Kenneth Leithwood

To cite this Article Leithwood, Kenneth(2007) 'Introduction to Special Issue', Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6: 1, 1
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/15700760601093131
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15700760601093131

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 Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6:1, 2007
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1570-0763 print /1744-5043 online
DOI: 10.1080/15700760601093131

Introduction to Special Issue

THE LEADING EDGE OF DISTRIBUTED

LEADERSHIP RESEARCH

Distributed forms of leadership and their contribution to organizational

functioning and outcomes are a significant preoccupation of leadership
scholars and practicing educational leaders alike. This special issue of
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Leadership and Policy in Schools describes much of the ground captured

by researchers on the leading edge of this focus and adds significant new
empirical insights to the relatively modest body of evidence informing our
current understanding of key issues concerning the distribution of leadership
in schools. Spanning leadership distribution at both school and district
levels, the four articles in this special issue explore alternative patterns that
leadership distribution can take and the relative impact of these patterns on
both organizational characteristics and student learning. These articles also
examine which sources of leadership in schools and districts typically and
most effectively enact which leadership functions. They begin to identify
the conditions in schools and districts which both foster and inhibit the
emergence of productive forms of leadership distribution.
While much of the empirical research on distributed leadership to date
has been intentionally descriptive in nature, interest on the part of practicing
leaders and those responsible for leadership development has a decidedly
and appropriately normative cast to it. If research on the topic is to inform
leadership practice, it will need to adopt this normative focus, as well. The
articles in this issue go some distance toward moving inquiry in this direction
and offer significant guidance for subsequent research with this aim. This
normative perspective reflects the special mission of Leadership and Policy in
Schools—publishing the highest quality research available aimed at informing
those challenges found at the intersection of educational leadership, policy,
and practice.

Kenneth Leithwood

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