Sharing leadership: a story from 'down under'

In one school in Australia leadership was already being shared prior to involvement in the project. However, participation in the Carpe Vitam project had helped to embed the approach and philosophy.

Clearly, the emphasis at the school has been to establish explicit links between leadership and learning in an effort to promote the structures, processes and intellectual climate, conducive to improving the academic performance of its students. This has been carried into action by the teachers involved in the project through their attempts in classroom activity to concentrate on processes that are known to be both academic enablers and leadership essentials. (Principal)

Leadership was described as a combination of a topdown and a democratic approach. The Carpe Vitam project offered the opportunity to further extend the principal’s view that he could not achieve successful school renewal alone: “I put to the staff that I can’t do it by myself…it was a lot of hard work by a lot of people…” What followed was a plan, in the principal’s words, “to build the structures and encourage teachers to take on extra responsibility and I suppose take on leadership roles. You don’t have to hold a position to be a leader and I think what we’ve done is we’ve had a strategic framework which allows that.”

That focus on a shared responsibility through the new structures and the devolution of leadership roles was extended to the student body:

There are a lot of students in this school and a lot of students in leadership roles which is very impressive and they take it on quite well too… it’s not just at the top, it’s spread throughout and there are various leaders at various levels. (Teacher)

The narrative

We started from the premise that leadership is not simply a question of status or something exercised by one individual but is a shared activity. Putting this to the test in practice led us to our fourth principle in which leadership is seen as activity, so beginning to assume a new and challenging meaning. Leadership for learning practice involves the sharing of leadership in which:

• structures support participation in developing the school as a learning community

• shared leadership is symbolised in the day-to-day flow of activities of the school

• everyone is encouraged to take the lead as appropriate to task and context

• the experience and expertise of staff, students and parents are drawn upon as resources

• collaborative patterns of work and activity across boundaries of subject, role and status are valued and promoted

The story from this school starts before the project began, with a new principal bringing a vision of shared leadership through the creation of structures and the delegation of authority. Involvement in the project, as for many other schools in the project, helped to identify and further enhance a sense of agency by giving a priority to student leadership.