An investigation by the Hay Group into the advantages, disadvantages, causes and constraints of a more distributed form of leadership in schools.

What does distributed leadership look like? Where does it flourish? What are the costs and benefits?

To help answer these questions, researchers visited 14 schools in diverse circumstances across the country - from a village primary in Cumbria to a large comprehensive in Cornwall. Despite the differences in these schools, two common themes became apparent.

Firstly, leadership begins when people care enough, not only to act but also to stick their heads above the parapet and persuade others. Schools that succeeded in travelling the road to distributed leadership felt like purposeful, caring environments, motivated by a shared sense of mission.

Secondly, it appeared that distributed leadership was usually given, not taken. It involved a decision by headteachers to create a school that was bigger than themselves: to share influence, to allow decisions to be made elsewhere. In the long term, the head's influence increased because the school could do more activities simultaneously. In return, the headteacher's own horizons expanded and his or her freedom to think and plan over the long term increased.

On the next page are some of the views of the school leaders that took part in the research.