Abstract This qualitative multiple case study investigates how distributed leadership influences innovation culture in two semi‐government schools in Karachi, Pakistan. Drawing on interviews, observations and document analysis, the study explores how leadership is understood, enacted and experienced in contrasting school environments; one innovation‐oriented and the other traditionally hierarchical. The findings reveal that distributed leadership fosters innovation by empowering teachers, promoting experimentation and nurturing a sense of shared responsibility, and that meaningful innovation emerges not solely from formal structures but through relational flattening, where leadership hierarchies are softened to promote trust, psychological safety and shared agency. The study contributes to distributed leadership theory by foregrounding relational dynamics, rather than positional structures, as key enablers of innovation in low‐resource, culturally hierarchical settings. It also challenges the assumption that distributed leadership automatically translates across contexts, instead offering empirical evidence of how relational leadership practices shape school‐level change. The study offers practical and theoretical insights for education reform in the Global South.
Javed et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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