The distribution of leadership and power in schools

Distributed leadership has come to prominence in school management discourse as a means to achieve the participation and empowerment of teachers and to create democratic schools. In this paper I explore the contradictions between these claims and both the hierarchical power structure of schools and the use of distributed leadership to secure the commitment of teachers to government education agendas. I examine how the relationship between distributed leadership and managerial power is addressed in the discourse of education management theorists and the practice of headteachers. Examples of authentically democratic schools based on collective self‐management provide the basis for questioning the hegemonic hierarchical model.