distributed leadership

A sustained, school-based approach that offers in-service EFL teachers opportunities for collaboration in creating an environment that promotes their capacity-building and instructional growth is necessary for their professional growth. This study aimed to contribute to the growing body of research on the effect of distributed leadership in teacher professional learning. Specifically, this study scrutinized the connection between distributed leadership and professional learning of teachers, focusing on the mediating role of teacher agency. A cross-sectional survey design was applied, collecting data from 458 teachers in Iran. Teacher Professional Learning Scale, Teacher Agency Scale, and Distributed Leadership Scale were completed by them. Structural equation modelling was run to analyze the relationship between variables. The findings revealed a minimal direct relationship between distributed leadership and the professional learning of teachers, with teacher agency acting as a major mediating factor. These results contribute to existing research by suggesting that distributed leadership may not have a substantial direct effect on teacher learning, but rather indirectly improves teacher agency.

Distributed leadership (DL) is a key framework in contemporary educational theory that moves beyond heroic, individual-centered models of leadership by emphasizing collective, relational practices. While DL effectively captures how leadership emerges through interactions among educators, administrators, and context, it often remains at an ontic level, focusing on observable tasks and role distributions while overlooking deeper ontological questions about educational being. This paper offers a philosophical reconfiguration of DL through Martin Heidegger’s existential phenomenology, drawing on the concepts of Being-in-the-world, dwelling, and care. It reconceptualizes DL as dwelling-in-practice, wherein educational actors are understood not as isolated agents but as primordially involved beings who co-constitute their shared world through attuned everyday engagement. From this perspective, the school appears not as a neutral container but as a meaningful place sustained by collective care. This ontological reframing highlights how leadership emerges from being-with-others (Mitsein) and shared involvement, rather than from functional distributions alone. It also illuminates existential dimensions often neglected in DL, such as disruption, unhomeliness, and interpretive responsiveness. Grounded in recent empirical studies, this approach advocates leadership development oriented toward ontological attunement, trust, and dialogue, and proposes evaluation criteria that privilege world-building over instrumental outcomes. Ultimately, viewing DL as dwelling-in-practice offers a more humane and sustainable vision of educational leadership focused on human flourishing.