Educational Leadership and Distributed Leadership
Educational leadership
Leithwood (2009) Defines educational leadership as a task of activating and influencing others to link and achieve the shared objectives and goals of the school. It also specifies that the leadership task can be carried out by those who occupy deferens positions in the school (Reyes, 2018). There are different educational leadership approaches, each of them with its characteristics and features, which in many cases has as a common denominator authoritarianism. According to Kouzes and Posner (2013), be an entrepreneur, manager, volunteer or individual collaborator, which will make the difference is the attitude of the leader, his skills and leaders of leading. This is characterized by the decision to challenge the process, to want to change the usual work environment.
It is the responsibility of school administrators to be able to create the necessary conditions to guarantee an educational and collective leadership where student teaching and learning is a successful one, where the teacher’s abilities are not limited and they can obtain better results in their students. In addition, Robinson (2015) highlights that the true work of an effective leader is not to give orders and control, but creatively stimulate the environment. For Robinson, teachers and school directors, they must create the necessary conditions for students and the community to develop (Reyes, 2018). Finally, according to Senge (2012) the secret to be able to lead an intelligent organization is its leader, since this leader is able to see his team as a whole, find the connections and compatibilities of each of them, of suchway that their abilities can be maximized.
Distributed leadership
In order to understand the relationship of the processes of influence in formal and informal groups, Gibb (as cited in López and Gallegos, 2015), used the expression distributed leadership originated when two or more people share roles, responsibilities and leadership functions. According to López and Gallegos, distributed leadership is based on the theories of activity and distributed cognition. Spillane (as cited in López and Gallegos, 2015) point out that the leadership distributed this composed of two main elements: the leader -plus and the practical aspect. This uses the term leader -plus to refer to the recognition that directing and managing in educational centers can be involved more than one person and the aspect of the practice for the connection of the operations of individual leaders in the interaction between administrators, followers and their situation (Reyes, 2018).
On the other hand, Gronn (as cited in López and Gallegos, 2015) indicated that distributed leadership is explained as a participation from a group or network of individuals who interact. For this, the concerted action of people who work together is carried out within a pattern of interpersonal relationships where group members can congregate their knowledge. According to Murillo (2006), distributed leadership is a new conceptual framework to analyze and face school leadership. The author points out that this entails much more than a simple remodeling of tasks, since it means a change in culture. It also indicates that distributed leadership deepens the commitment and involvement of all members of the school community in the march, operation and management of the school.
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