This book presents the outcomes of research and practical endeavour in some of the diverse contexts in which learning takes place: classrooms, schools, professional development settings, community projects and service sector agencies. It invites the reader to engage with two related questions of contemporary concern in the leadership field:

"What can we learn about the important influence of different contexts on leadership practice and how are people brought together as collective human agents in different patterns of distributive leadership?"

In doing so, this collection emphasises three of the critical concepts at play when leadership is viewed, not as position, but as activity. The three concepts are purpose, context and human agency. When this view of leadership is understood, it is always about achieving shared goals with people power, no matter the circumstances in which they are gathered together.

Foreword.- Contributors.- Part I: Distributed Leadership: Theory and Practice.- Distributed Leadership and Context:  Theory and Practice Dimensions in Systems, Schools and Communities; Greer Johnson, Neil Dempster  and Elizabeth Wheeley.- Part II: Leadership and Systems.- Turnaround school leadership: from paradigms to promises; Ira Bogotch, Daniel Reyes-Guerra and Jennifer Freeland.- Examining policy intersections: democracy, technologies and the implications for school leadership; Kathryn Moyle.- Leadership Learning:  Blended Power; Neil Dempster.- Multi-level leadership for assessment for learning, and the potential of critical friendship; Sue Swaffield.- Utilising a Leadership Blueprint to build the capacity of schools to achieve outcomes for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder; Amanda Webster.- Leadership, learning and change in post-conflict schools:  Much ado about a lot; Simon Clarke  and Tom O¿Donoghue.- School leadership for learning and change: Progress of an Asian agenda; Allan Walker and Philip Hallinger.- Part III: Leadership in Schools.- Leading with Moral Purpose: Teacher leadership in action; Joan Conway and Dorothy Andrews.- To Lead or not to Lead:  That is the question; Susan Lovett.- Leadership in Assessment in an Environment of External Accountability: Developing an Assessment for Learning Culture; J. Joy Cumming, Graham Maxwell and Claire M. Wyatt-Smith.- Shifting practices and frames: literacy, learning and computer games; Catherine Beavis and Joanna O¿Mara.- Distributed leadership policies and practices:  Striving for educational equity in high poverty contexts; Parlo Singh and Kathryn Glasswell.- Curriculum Leadership: Reforming and Reshaping Successful Practice in Remote and Regional Indigenous Education; Robyn Jorgensen.- The impact of interaction and language on leading learning in Indigenous classrooms; Rod Gardner and Ilana Mushin.- Cogenerative Dialogue for Collective Curriculum Leadership; Wolff-Michael Roth and Michele Salles el Kadri.- Part IV: Leadership in Communities.- Developing Student Leadership Through Peer Teaching in Schools; Bruce Burton.- Conceptions of learning leadership in remote Indigenous communities: A distributive approach; Bev Flückiger and Helen Klieve.- Capacity Building for Parental Engagement in Reading: A Distributed Leadership Approach between Schools and Indigenous Communities; Greer Johnson and Lynanne McKenzie.- The difficult return: supporting returning veterans through an arts-based social leadership program; Michael Balfour.- Part V: A Synthesis of Ideas.- Leading Schools in the 21st Century:  Careful Driving in the Fast Lane; Tony Townsend.