?A Bit More Life in the Leadership?: Co-Principalship as Distributed Leadership Practice

Most commentators think of leadership as individually focused, a preference which reflects historical understandings and usage. With the example of a co-principalship, this article shows how focused leadership is at odds with the reality of distributed work practice. The article reports research at College A, a Catholic all-girls’ secondary school owned by a religious order, which for some years has had a male and female co-principalship. The argument is that co-principalship is a form of shared role space inhabited by a distributed mind. The evidence for this claim is to be found in the contextual origins of co-principalships, the dynamics of the working division of labour between the permanent and temporary role space occupants and in the organisational consequences of shared authority. These findings are shown to have important implications for the representation of distributed leadership practice and for policies which intensify the role demands imposed on solo role incumbents.