Distributed leadership, collective responsibility

The purpose of my research was to contribute to the theory building work in distributed leadership initiated by Spillane and Diamond, (2007), adding clarity to the term "distributed leadership" by applying their theory to a particular setting. I performed a qualitative study that used the distributed leadership framework to examine leadership practices that occurred as people interacted in particular situations to improve instruction in a high school English department. The leadership activity that framed my analysis was the effort to achieve the goal of improving student achievement in a collaborative culture. Distributed leadership is defined by the interactions of school leaders, their followers and their situations (Spillane & Camburn, 2006, Spillane & Diamond, 2007 and Spillane, Halverson & Diamond, 2004). Distributed leadership practice is formed at the intersection of these three components; it is the active practice of co-constructing leadership (Diamond, 2010). The distributed leadership framework has three dimensions: (1) aspects of a situation or context, (2) ways in which leaders co-lead, and (3) the interactions of leaders and followers including switching roles. My st