Distributed leadership-engaging the many rather than the few in school improvement-has long been a promising theory. But it must be implemented effectively before educators and students can reap the rewards, including improved learner outcomes and stronger organizational performance.

Distributed Leadership Matters offers pragmatic approaches for realizing these benefits. First, Alma Harris shows why harnessing educators' collective expertise is an improvement strategy worth adopting. Then she details the collaborative processes that make it happen. Insights include:

• How to translate the research on distributed leadership into tangible results for schools


• Methods for building the social capital necessary for sustainable institutional change


• How to distribute leadership widely and wisely through professional collaboration

This book is the educator's guide to improving the learning outcomes of young people, whatever their context and whatever it takes, supporting teachers to be the very best they can be and ensuring that collaborative learning with impact is achievable and sustainable.

Preface
Introduction
1. Leading Educational Change and Improvement
What Does Educational Change for Improvement Require?
2. Leading System Reform
What Are the Challenges of Reform at Scale?
3. Future Leaders
Why Distributed Leadership Is Needed More Than Ever in a Changing World
4. Distributed Leadership: The Facts
What We Know About Distributed Leadership and Improved Outcomes and Performance
5. Distributed Leadership: The Dark Side
How Distributed Leadership Can be Misused, Misrepresented, and Misconstrued
6. Distributed Leadership: Building Social Capital
How Distributed Leadership, in the Form of Professional Collaboration, Contributes to Building Social Capital for Organizational Improvement
7. Distributed Leadership: Professional Learning Communities
How Distributed Leadership, in the Form of Powerful Collaborative Teams, Contributes to Organizational Improvement
8. Distributed Leadership: Professional Learning with Impact
Leading Effective and Disciplined Professional Collaboration
References
Appendix
Index

Alma Harris is Professor of Educational Leadership at the Institute of Educational Leadership, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Since September 2012, she has been the Director of the Institute of Educational Leadership at the University of Malaya (UM). In 2010-2012 she was a senior policy adviser to the Welsh Government. Professor Harris holds visiting professorial posts at Moscow Higher School of Economics, Nottingham Business School, University of Wales and the University of Southampton. She is currently Past President of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and School Improvement. Professor Harris has published many books including Distributed Leadership Matters (2013), and Uplifting Leadership (2014) with Andy Hargreaves and Alan Boyle.