SHARED LEADERSHIP: HOW IS THE PHENOMENON UNDERSTOOD IN THEORY AND PRACTISED IN THE SCHOOLS?

Yıl 2017, Cilt: 9 Sayı: 1, 177 - 191, 01.02.2017

Sello Mokoena

Öz

Leadership affects the success and failure of every type of school, and the
complexity of today’s school environments makes leadership even more
challenging. Therefore, it is becoming more difficult for any single individual to
possess all the skills and abilities required to competently lead a school. Shared
leadership has been identified as a key governance base for the future that offers
ways to make the role of principals more manageable through collaboration and
teamwork. A review of the literature indicates that while shared leadership has
been practised in some form for centuries, it is still not well understood, not well
accepted and not valued by those who practise or study leadership. This study
investigates the current understanding and practice of shared leadership in
secondary schools. A qualitative case study approach was selected, incorporating
a series of semi-structured interviews with school principals. The findings
affirmed that there is still little agreement on what shared leadership actually
means, ratifying the point that shared leadership is still not well understood. The
variation indicates a range of practices that fall under the general umbrella of
shared leadership but differ in the manner and extent in which leadership is shared
in schools. This study gives a better insight into how shared leadership is
understood in theory and practised in schools. This contribution could be used as a
training ground for future and existing school principals.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Shared leadership, school principals, implementation, change management