Shared leadership in higher education: an exploration of the composition of school leadership teams and school performance

ABSTRACT

Leadership teams have the potential to be extraordinarily effective bodies, undertaking institutional-level decisions and driving performance. There has been limited exploration of the nature of leadership teams in higher education and specifically those at the forefront of academic units where teaching and research is undertaken. This study examined the relationship between composition of school leadership teams and school performance data over a 5-year period in one Australian university. The results demonstrate an agility at the school level to address changing institutional priorities through the composition of school leadership teams and a distributed approach to leadership, providing momentum on which to build.

KEYWORDS:

• leadership
• performance
• distributed leadership
• shared leadership
• school
• academic unit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).