Conceptualizing Distributed Leadership: Diverse Voices of Positional Leaders in Early Childhood Education

ABSTRACT

There has been little discussion about distributed leadership through the lens of beliefs. Principals and head teachers of two case-study kindergartens in Hong Kong were invited to be participants to examine how leaders think and act. Semi-structured interviews and shadowing were employed to collect data. The findings suggest that leaders’ beliefs can be categorized into five dimensions: “understandings”; “what,” “how,” and “why” leadership is distributed; and “to whom leadership is distributed.” It is suggested that the beliefs of leaders make a difference in leadership style, practices, and the assignment of duties to their followers.

Notes

1. Scholars argue that school leadership in Hong Kong and the Mainland tends to use the top-down governance approach. A highly centralized school management board makes all decisions, while teacher participation is rare (Jing, 2010; Morrison & Adamson, 2000).

2. The great-man theory of leadership proclaims that the great leaders (men or women) are born but not made. They can lead people successfully by their determination (Cawthon, 1996).

3. Hargreaves (1994) highlights four forms of teacher culture: individualism, collaboration, contrived collegiality, and balkanization. Individualism is about isolation from staff, while balkanization is about teachers forming subgroups from a team. Contrived collegiality is formed by external imposition, whereas collaboration involved colleagues working together with a shared goal.

4. Professional learning community (PLC) is a paradigm shift away from traditional teacher development monitored by external experts to life-long professional learning in the workplace, where teachers share their expertise within a community (DuFour & Eaker, 1998).

5. Shared leadership involves two or more members engaged in the leadership of a team to maximize team effectiveness (Bergman, Rentsch, Small, Davenport, & Bergman, 2012).

6. Team leadership refers to team leaders who place considerable emphasis on team building and lead the individuals of a team to accomplish a common goal (Zaccaroa, Rittmana, and Marks (2001).

7. Democratic leadership refers to leaders who strive for democracy with their followers. The characteristics of democratic leadership include sacrifice, courage, symbolism, participation, and vision (Choi, 2007).

8. The nonprofit kindergartens are subsidized by the Pre-Primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS) introduced by the Education Bureau in 2007. These kindergartens are required to follow the performance indicators of the quality assurance framework prescribed by the government (Education Bureau, 2006).

9. The curriculum aims to provide child-centered education while nurturing children’s development in moral, cognitive and language, physical, affective, aesthetic, and social aspects.

10. There are four levels in the judgmental review: unsatisfactory, acceptable, good, and excellent.

11. Software facilitates the analysis of a qualitative study. QSR International data analysis software.