Distributed Leadership in Organizations: A Review of Theory and Research

The aim of this paper is to review conceptual and empirical literature on the concept of distributed leadership (DL) in order to identify its origins, key arguments and areas for further work. Consideration is given to the similarities and differences between DL and related concepts, including ‘shared’, ‘collective’, ‘collaborative’, ‘emergent’, ‘co‐’ and ‘democratic’ leadership. Findings indicate that, while there are some common theoretical bases, the relative usage of these concepts varies over time, between countries and between sectors. In particular, DL is a notion that has seen a rapid growth in interest since the year 2000, but research remains largely restricted to the field of school education and of…