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Distributed leadership

Distributed leadership is a conceptual framework in organizational and educational theory that describes leadership as a distributed practice emerging from the interdependent interactions among multiple individuals, including both formal and informal leaders, rather than being concentrated in a single authority figure.^[1] This approach emphasizes the co-performance of leadership tasks through collaboration, shared decision-making, and the mobilization of expertise across a network of participants, fostering a collective rather than hierarchical dynamic.^[2] Originating primarily in educational research, the concept was pioneered by James P. Spillane and colleagues in the early 2000s, who reconceptualized leadership as a situated practice influenced by leaders, followers, and their situational context.^[1] Spillane's framework highlights how leadership functions as an emergent property of these interactions, extending beyond individual traits to encompass relational and environmental factors.^[2] Key characteristics of distributed leadership include its emphasis on autonomy, reciprocity, and the blurring of traditional leadership boundaries, allowing expertise to be spread across diverse roles within an organization or school.^[3] In educational settings, it promotes shared responsibilities among principals, teachers, and other stakeholders to enhance school improvement, organizational commitment, and inclusive practices, such as student-centered decision-making and family involvement.^[4] Beyond education, the model has gained traction in broader management contexts, where it supports agile responses to complex challenges by enabling networks of formal and informal leaders to drive innovation and learning cultures.^[3] Empirical studies from 2009 to 2019, primarily in post-primary schools across the United States and Europe, demonstrate its association with positive outcomes like improved school culture and teacher participation, though gaps remain in addressing policy influences and equity for underrepresented groups.^[2] While distributed leadership offers benefits such as increased adaptability and entrepreneurial behavior in dynamic environments, it can also present challenges, including potential misuse for top-down control or uneven distribution of burdens.^[1] Contemporary research underscores its relevance in fostering equity and social justice, particularly in inclusive schools where collaborative leadership mobilizes diverse actors toward shared goals without coercion.^[4] As organizations evolve amid technological and generational shifts, distributed leadership is increasingly viewed as a vital strategy for building resilient, innovative structures that empower participants at all levels.^[3]

Introduction

Definition and Scope

Distributed leadership is a conceptual framework that views leadership as a distributed practice emerging from the interactions among leaders, followers, and their situated context, rather than being confined to the actions of a single individual or formal role.^[5] This model emphasizes the stretching of leadership responsibilities across multiple individuals within an organization, fostering collaborative decision-making and the emergence of leadership roles in response to specific needs.^[5] Unlike traditional models that center authority in a designated leader, distributed leadership highlights interdependent practices where leadership functions are co-produced through collective efforts.^[1] The scope of distributed leadership encompasses both horizontal and vertical dimensions of distribution. Horizontally, it involves the sharing of leadership among peers or informal groups, such as teachers collaborating on curriculum development without direct oversight from a superior, enabling peer-to-peer influence and collective problem-solving.^[5] Vertically, it extends across hierarchical levels, where responsibilities are distributed from top executives to lower-level employees, for instance, in a school setting where a principal delegates instructional leadership to department heads while retaining strategic oversight.^[5] This contrasts sharply with hierarchical leadership, which relies on top-down command structures and centralized decision-making, often limiting initiative to formal positions and potentially stifling adaptability.^[5] In distributed models, delegation is not merely task assignment but an integrated practice that leverages diverse expertise across the organization.^[1] Key characteristics of distributed leadership include its fluidity, collective agency, and context-dependency. Fluidity refers to the dynamic nature of leadership roles, which shift based on situational demands rather than fixed positions, allowing for emergent leadership in varied scenarios.^[5] Collective agency underscores the shared responsibility and interdependencies among participants, where no single actor dominates but all contribute to leadership outcomes through reciprocal interactions.^[5] Context-dependency highlights how leadership practices are shaped by organizational tools, routines, and environments, such as policy frameworks or team dynamics, ensuring relevance to specific settings like educational or corporate structures.^[5] These traits delineate distributed leadership from more rigid, individualistic approaches, promoting a more inclusive and responsive organizational dynamic.^[1]

Significance in Modern Organizations

Distributed leadership has emerged as a vital approach in modern organizations, enhancing organizational agility by enabling flexible teams to respond swiftly to evolving technologies and external risks, such as pandemics or climate challenges.^[3] This model promotes employee engagement through greater autonomy and shared decision-making, aligning individuals around common goals without coercive oversight, which fosters a sense of empowerment and motivation.^[6] Furthermore, it drives innovation by leveraging shared expertise across formal and informal networks, allowing diverse ideas to spread rapidly and encouraging entrepreneurial behaviors within the organization.^[3] A 2015 study comparing distributed and bureaucratic leadership in two firms found that distributed approaches excelled in key areas like sensemaking, visioning, and inventing, leading to superior performance in sustainability initiatives.^[3] In volatile environments, such as post-pandemic workplaces undergoing digital transformations, distributed leadership proves particularly relevant by supporting adaptability and collaborative problem-solving in remote or hybrid settings.^[7] For instance, during the COVID-19 transition in Swedish eldercare, distributed practices facilitated quick shifts to digital platforms, improving decision-making and team performance through enhanced transparency and collegial interactions, as observed in 25 digital meetings and interviews with needs assessors.^[7] Empirical data from high-tech enterprises in China, involving 567 employees, further demonstrates that distributed leadership positively influences innovative behavior (β = 0.24, p < 0.05), mediated by psychological empowerment (indirect effect = 0.45), resulting in better team outcomes amid rapid changes.^[6] By distributing responsibilities, this leadership style fosters inclusivity, enabling participation from all organizational levels based on skills and passion rather than hierarchy, which promotes diverse contributions and equity.^[3] It also reduces burnout for formal leaders by alleviating overload through shared roles and capacity-building discussions, indirectly enhancing overall wellbeing.^[3] A study of 3,799 secondary school teachers in Shanghai, based on 2018 data, revealed that distributed leadership significantly boosts job wellbeing (β = 0.51, p < 0.001) and career wellbeing (β = 0.45, p < 0.001), with self-efficacy mediating the effect on job wellbeing (indirect effect β = 0.05, p < 0.001) and thereby mitigating exhaustion risks in demanding contexts.^[8]

Historical Development

Origins in Educational Research

The concept of distributed leadership emerged in educational research during the late 1990s, with scholars such as Peter Gronn and James P. Spillane playing pivotal roles in coining and developing the term within studies of school leadership. Gronn introduced key ideas in his 2000 paper, "Distributed Properties: A New Architecture for Leadership," where he proposed distributed leadership as a collaborative structure involving multiple actors rather than isolated individuals, drawing on organizational dynamics in educational settings.^[9] Similarly, Spillane advanced the notion in his 2001 article, "Investigating School Leadership Practice: A Distributed Perspective," emphasizing leadership as a practice stretched across social interactions in schools.^[10] These foundational works marked a shift from traditional, hierarchical models to ones that recognized shared responsibilities among educators. The roots of distributed leadership lie in educational reform movements of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which sought to enhance school improvement by involving teachers more actively in decision-making processes. In the United Kingdom, the establishment of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) in 2000 promoted distributed leadership as a core strategy for school effectiveness, encouraging the delegation of leadership tasks to teachers and other staff to foster collaborative governance and innovation. In the United States, the Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) initiatives, supported by federal funding starting in 1998, integrated distributed leadership principles to support whole-school transformations, with Spillane and colleagues examining how leadership distribution facilitated instructional improvements in elementary schools adopting reform models like Accelerated Schools and Success for All.^[11] These movements highlighted teacher involvement as essential for addressing complex challenges in student achievement and school culture. Early conceptualizations of distributed leadership were influenced by activity theory, which views leadership as a socially distributed activity embedded in organizational contexts. Spillane's framework, articulated in his 2001 work, applied activity theory to argue that leadership emerges from the interplay of individuals, tools, and situations in schools, rather than residing solely in formal roles. Gronn complemented this by linking distribution to the social partitioning of tasks, where leadership functions are concertively enacted through team-based practices, as explored in his analyses of educational teams. This theoretical grounding positioned distributed leadership as a dynamic process suited to the collaborative demands of educational environments.

Evolution and Key Milestones

The concept of distributed leadership gained formal traction in the early 2000s through foundational work in educational research, marking a shift from traditional hierarchical models to more collaborative approaches. A pivotal milestone occurred in 2002 when Peter Gronn published "Distributed leadership as a unit of analysis" in The Leadership Quarterly, proposing distributed leadership as a collective phenomenon where leadership functions are shared across individuals rather than residing solely with a single authority figure.^[12] This built on emerging ideas in education, emphasizing how leadership emerges from interactions within social contexts. Complementing this, James P. Spillane's 2002 contributions, including explorations in distributed perspectives on school leadership practice, further solidified the framework by viewing leadership as stretched over leaders, followers, and situations.^[13] Another key milestone was Spillane's 2006 book Distributed Leadership, which provided a comprehensive theoretical and empirical foundation, influencing its application in school reform.^[14] During the 2010s, distributed leadership expanded beyond its educational origins into business and organizational contexts, influenced by ongoing theoretical refinements that highlighted its applicability to complex, non-hierarchical structures. Analyses in the late 2000s and early 2010s, including Gronn's work on leadership configurations, underscored how distributed models enhance adaptability in diverse sectors, prompting applications in corporate settings where shared leadership addressed dynamic challenges like innovation and team-based decision-making.^[15] This period saw a surge in interdisciplinary adoption, with studies demonstrating its utility in healthcare and public administration, reflecting a broader recognition of its role in fostering collective efficacy.^[16] In the 2020s, particularly post-COVID-19, distributed leadership integrated with agile methodologies, enabling organizations to navigate remote work and rapid change through decentralized decision-making. This evolution was accelerated by global events, including economic crises such as the 2008 financial downturn and subsequent disruptions, which highlighted distributed leadership's value for building resilient structures capable of withstanding volatility. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, its alignment with agile practices supported distributed teams in maintaining productivity and innovation amid uncertainty.^[17] Recent 2025 systematic reviews have illuminated these thematic developments, noting a progression toward interdisciplinary applications in sectors like technology and sustainability, while identifying gaps in empirical validation across developing economies.^[18]^[19]

Theoretical Foundations

Core Theoretical Models

Distributed leadership theory is fundamentally shaped by James Spillane's model (2006), which conceptualizes leadership not as the isolated actions of designated individuals but as a distributed practice stretched across leaders, followers, and their situated contexts. In this framework, leadership emerges through the interdependent interactions among multiple actors, where formal and informal leaders collaborate with followers to co-produce leadership outcomes, influenced by tools, routines, and organizational structures. Spillane emphasizes three forms of distribution—collaborated (reciprocal interactions), coordinated (sequential tasks), and collective (interdependent but separate actions)—highlighting that leadership practice is contextually contingent and not reducible to individual traits or roles. This model assumes that leadership capacity expands when stretched over a network of participants rather than concentrated in a single authority, drawing from activity theory to underscore the role of mediation in practice.^[20] Building on this, Peter Gronn's concertive action theory posits distributed leadership as an emergent phenomenon arising from social coordination among organizational members, who form hybrid roles that blend formal and informal responsibilities. Concertive action refers to the collective agency where individuals intuitively align efforts without hierarchical directives, manifesting in patterns such as spontaneous collaboration (unplanned teamwork), intuitive working relations (trust-based informal coordination), and institutionalized practices (formalized shared structures). Gronn's approach assumes that leadership functions as a unit of analysis at the group level, where social synergies reduce the need for centralized control and foster adaptive responses to complexity through conjoint agency. This theory integrates elements of shared leadership by viewing distribution as a dynamic process of role hybridization rather than mere delegation.^[21] Distributed leadership further integrates with systems theory to explain how interconnected roles operate without a central authority, treating organizations as complex adaptive systems where leadership diffuses across subsystems to manage environmental demands. Drawing from Niklas Luhmann's framework, this integration views leadership distribution as a mechanism for functional differentiation, enabling subunits to handle specialized tasks interdependently while maintaining overall coherence, as seen in cases where schools achieve higher integration of technologies through decentralized yet coordinated leadership structures. The assumption here is that such systems self-organize through recursive interactions, enhancing resilience by avoiding bottlenecks in hierarchical models and promoting emergent leadership at multiple levels.^[22] Distributed leadership exhibits notable overlaps with shared leadership, particularly in the emphasis on collaborative processes that extend influence beyond hierarchical positions to include multiple actors. Shared leadership prioritizes equality among participants, encouraging voluntary engagement and mutual reliance to leverage collective expertise for decision-making. However, while shared leadership underscores egalitarian dynamics and team buy-in, distributed leadership distinguishes itself by integrating contextual elements, such as organizational structures and tasks, to guide how leadership functions are allocated across formal and informal roles.^[23]^[1] Similarly, collective leadership aligns with distributed leadership through its focus on group dynamics, where influence emerges from interconnected contributions by diverse members to drive organizational change. Collective approaches highlight the pooling of leadership sources to foster adaptive responses, yet distributed leadership uniquely stresses the situational interplay between people, practices, and environments that shape these dynamics. This contextual orientation differentiates it from collective leadership's broader emphasis on unified group efforts.^[1]^[24]^[23] Distributed leadership further links to situational leadership theory, developed by Hersey and Blanchard (1969), which posits that effective leadership adapts to followers' readiness and environmental demands through varying styles of directive and supportive behaviors. In distributed contexts, this adaptability manifests as the strategic assignment of leadership responsibilities based on situational needs, enabling flexible distribution to optimize outcomes in dynamic settings.^[1] Influences from complexity theory in organizational behavior also inform distributed leadership, particularly regarding the emergence of leadership as a nonlinear, interactive process within complex adaptive systems. Complexity leadership theory (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007) frames leadership not as a fixed trait but as an outcome of evolving interactions, tensions, and enabling conditions that allow practices to distribute organically. This theoretical foundation reinforces distributed leadership's view of emergence in response to organizational complexity, where leadership stretches across individuals, tools, and contexts to navigate uncertainty.^[1]^[24]

Core Principles

Distributed Practices and Leader Plus

Distributed leadership operates through the "Leader Plus" framework, which emphasizes that leadership extends beyond formal role holders to include informal contributors, often referred to as the "plus." This framework, articulated by Spillane and Diamond, posits that formal leaders actively enable this distribution by arranging structures such as division of labor and delegation of responsibilities, thereby supporting informal leaders through resources, guidance, and opportunities for participation. In this model, formal leaders foster an environment where multiple individuals co-perform leadership functions, recognizing interdependent interactions among leaders, followers, and aspects of the situation to achieve collective outcomes.^[25] Key practices in distributed leadership, as outlined by Peter Gronn, include intuitive mutual adjustment and conjoint agency, which manifest in everyday team dynamics. Intuitive mutual adjustment refers to reciprocal adaptations in working relationships, particularly in fluid shared role spaces where team members align efforts organically without rigid hierarchies. Conjoint agency involves collaborative co-performance where participants collectively enact leadership through shared agency.^[16] These practices appear in routine interactions, such as collaborative problem-solving sessions where team members engage in mutual adjustment to refine solutions on the fly, co-construct shared understandings of issues, and draw on diverse expertise to navigate complexities. For instance, in team meetings, formal leaders might delegate facilitation to an informal expert, enabling the group to iteratively build consensus and adapt approaches, thereby distributing leadership across the interaction. This operationalizes the Leader Plus concept by embedding distribution in daily activities, enhancing collective efficacy without relying solely on top-down directives.^[26]

Situational and Contextual Factors

The effectiveness of distributed leadership is profoundly influenced by organizational culture, which shapes the norms and values that either enable or constrain the sharing of leadership responsibilities. In collaborative cultures that emphasize inclusivity and shared vision, distributed leadership flourishes by encouraging participation across levels, whereas hierarchical or individualistic cultures can act as barriers, limiting its adoption.^[1]^[27] Trust levels within the organization are equally critical, as high trust fosters open communication and risk-taking essential for distributing leadership tasks; empirical studies in educational settings have shown a positive correlation between distributed leadership practices and interpersonal trust among staff.^[28]^[29] Resource availability, including time for collaboration and professional development opportunities, further facilitates implementation by reducing overload and building capacity for shared roles.^[27] Without adequate resources, such as training programs, efforts to distribute leadership often falter due to competing demands on personnel.^[1] Situational contingencies play a pivotal role in determining the suitability of distributed leadership, with high-uncertainty environments often promoting its use to enhance agility and collective problem-solving. During crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, distributed approaches enabled rapid adaptation through networked decision-making, contrasting with more stable contexts where entrenched hierarchies may suffice and even reinforce centralized control.^[28] In volatile settings, such as rapidly changing markets or educational reforms, distributing leadership leverages diverse expertise to navigate ambiguity, whereas in predictable, stable environments, it risks inefficiency without clear hierarchies to streamline processes.^[12] These contingencies highlight the need for leaders to assess environmental dynamics before promoting distribution.^[27] Technology significantly impacts the enabling of distributed leadership by providing digital tools that support remote collaboration and information sharing, particularly in dispersed or virtual teams. Platforms for real-time communication and data access have transformed leadership practices, allowing non-traditional leaders to contribute effectively across boundaries, as evidenced in pandemic-era shifts to virtual schooling.^[28] However, successful integration requires adaptive strategies and technological infrastructure to mitigate barriers like digital divides, ensuring equitable participation in distributed processes.^[27]

Applications and Implementation

In Educational Settings

Distributed leadership in educational settings is prominently applied through teacher teams focused on curriculum development and school improvement initiatives. Teachers participate in structures such as instructional leadership teams (ILTs), grade-level teams, department teams, and data teams to lead professional development, co-plan curricula, and drive collaborative pedagogy.^[30] A 2025 systematic review of 54 studies emphasizes how distributed and collaborative leadership positions teachers as pedagogical leaders, enabling shared decision-making, mentoring, and professional learning communities that enhance instructional practices and school-wide reforms.^[31] Similarly, a 2025 empirical study on extended education in German all-day schools found that shared leadership responsibilities in collaborative teacher teams significantly contribute to allocating time for staff collaboration, fostering organizational quality and pedagogical innovation.^[32] The approach yields notable benefits, including improved student outcomes and teacher retention. Research shows distributed leadership correlates with higher academic achievement, greater student engagement, and enhanced well-being through inclusive practices and collaborative environments.^[27] For teacher retention, it boosts job satisfaction, commitment, and autonomy, reducing turnover rates in schools adopting these models.^[30] However, implementation faces challenges in hierarchical school structures, where bureaucratic resistance, role ambiguity, and entrenched power dynamics impede the shift toward shared authority and collaborative processes.^[30] ^[33] Case examples illustrate these dynamics in UK academies and US charter schools. In England, academies employ a three-tiered distributed leadership model involving headteachers, senior leaders, and middle leaders accountable for subject-specific performance, supporting curriculum alignment and improvement; over 80% of secondary schools operate as academies under this framework as of 2025.^[34] ^[35] A UK primary school case, applicable to academy contexts, at Caslon Community Primary School involved distributed pastoral teams led by deputy headteachers, resulting in an Ofsted upgrade from "good" to "outstanding" in care and support, alongside improved attendance and reduced exclusions.^[36] In the US, a study of two central Florida charter schools demonstrated how distributed leadership maintained founders' missions through adaptive teacher roles, cultivating a positive school culture that supported student needs, though direct achievement metrics were not quantified.^[37] Additionally, in Westerly Middle School, monthly ILT meetings under distributed leadership improved test scores and school culture.^[30]

In Organizational and Public Sectors

In corporations, distributed leadership is prominently applied through agile teams and flat organizational structures, which decentralize authority to promote rapid decision-making and innovation in dynamic environments. This approach aligns with complexity leadership theory, enabling shared responsibilities among team members to leverage diverse expertise while maintaining strategic alignment. In knowledge-based organizations, flat hierarchies facilitate cross-functional collaboration by reducing bureaucratic layers, allowing employees to initiate and lead projects autonomously, as exemplified in efforts to break down silos between departments like research and development and marketing. Such adaptations enhance adaptability in sectors like technology and consulting, where traditional top-down models hinder responsiveness.^[3] In public sectors, particularly eldercare, distributed leadership adopts trust-based models that emphasize relational agency and dialogue to foster participation across organizational levels. A 2025 case study of six Swedish eldercare workplaces revealed that successful implementations rely on shared visions, formalized training, and self-organized groups, dispersing decision-making through spontaneous collaborations and institutionalized roles such as thematic coordinators managing budgets.^[38] These models prioritize stakeholder input via participatory forums and coaching, ensuring vertical alignment between management and staff alongside horizontal team interactions, which sustain engagement and resource allocation. Recent 2025 research further demonstrates dispersion across actors in public organizations, where inclusive leadership amplifies diverse employee involvement in change-oriented, relation-oriented, and task-oriented activities, with effects moderated by factors like gender and seniority.^[39] To assess the extent of leadership dispersion in these sectors, social network analysis serves as a primary measurement tool, quantifying patterns of influence through metrics like network centralization (indicating distribution) and density (indicating overall leadership degree). In team-based settings, this method maps relationships to identify how leadership emerges and spreads, revealing correlations with outcomes such as team viability and performance. For instance, low centralization scores signal broad distribution, while higher density reflects robust leadership engagement, supported by antecedents like intragroup trust. This approach is particularly valuable in non-hierarchical corporate teams and public service networks, providing empirical insights into adaptive leadership dynamics without relying on self-reported aggregates.^[40]

Criticisms and Challenges

Potential Drawbacks and Dark Sides

Distributed leadership, while promoting shared responsibility, can engender several unintended negative consequences, particularly in educational settings. A key drawback is role ambiguity, which arises when authority lines become blurred under structural distributed leadership, leading to diluted leadership support and weaker organizational identification among staff. This ambiguity often fosters interpersonal conflict as multiple leaders navigate overlapping duties without clear accountability, resulting in inefficiencies and power struggles. For instance, in schools with multiple formal leaders, such arrangements have been shown to reduce empowerment and exacerbate tensions by spreading responsibilities too thinly, a phenomenon known as diffusion of responsibility. Additionally, inequality in participation emerges, as not all individuals equally engage, with some groups marginalized and lower functional distributed leadership reported in such environments, ultimately harming job satisfaction and work performance. Beyond structural issues, distributed leadership places significant overload on informal leaders, who assume substantial responsibilities without formal authority or adequate support, leading to burnout and stress. These informal roles, often filled by ambitious or proactive individuals, can result in role overload when expectations exceed resources, diminishing overall leadership effectiveness and personal well-being. In traditional cultures, resistance to distributed leadership is pronounced, as it challenges hierarchical norms and centralized authority. In Jordanian public schools, for example, the culturally embedded 'Al Faza’a' leadership style—emphasizing tribal solidarity and top-down decision-making—acts as an implicit barrier, causing principals to revert to pre-reform practices and hindering collaborative participation. Poor coordination further exacerbates these issues in large-scale distributions, where weak communication channels lead to misalignment, misunderstandings, and inconsistent decision-making across dispersed leaders. In educational organizations, this has manifested as overlapping efforts and delayed initiatives, underscoring the need for robust guidelines to prevent such coordination failures.

Empirical Evidence and Measurement Issues

Empirical research on distributed leadership has yielded mixed findings regarding its effectiveness, particularly in relation to outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational performance. A 2025 systematic literature review analyzed 111 studies from 2002 to 2022, identifying 44 empirical investigations that highlight thematic developments in behavioral aspects (e.g., trust and collaboration), contextual factors (e.g., sectoral applications in education), and performance impacts (e.g., enhanced efficiency and adaptability).^[41] This review underscores distributed leadership's dynamic, context-dependent nature but notes inconsistencies in outcomes across studies.^[41] Structural-functional analyses have revealed nuanced effects on job satisfaction. In a multilevel study of 2,632 teachers across 203 Romanian schools, structural distributed leadership—focusing on the breadth of leadership roles—was negatively associated with job satisfaction (indirect effect β = -0.05, p = 0.01), mediated by reduced leadership support, while functional distributed leadership—emphasizing the quality of interactions—positively influenced satisfaction through empowerment and organizational identification (indirect effects β ranging from 0.03 to 0.07, p < 0.05).^[42] Similarly, a Nordic analysis of school-level data showed mixed results: teacher-level distributed leadership enhanced job satisfaction, but school-level distribution sometimes diluted it due to coordination challenges. Measuring distributed leadership poses significant challenges due to its emergent and relational qualities, often requiring multifaceted approaches. Common tools include surveys like the Distributed Leadership Inventory (DLI), a validated instrument assessing leadership team characteristics and role distribution through Likert-scale items on cooperation and support, with strong reliability (α > 0.80). Network mapping techniques, such as sociometric analysis, quantify leadership distribution via metrics like network density (measuring interaction breadth) and reciprocity (assessing mutual influence), applied in studies of school teams to visualize leadership flows. Qualitative observations, including semi-structured interviews and ethnographic case studies, capture contextual practices and comprise 54.7% of empirical methods in recent reviews.^[43] Research gaps persist, particularly in methodological rigor and contextual diversity. The 2025 review identifies a lack of empirically validated frameworks and overreliance on questionnaires (41% of studies), limiting generalizability.^[41] Non-Western organizations remain understudied, with only 11% of publications from developing nations (e.g., sparse data from South Africa and Malaysia compared to 21 from the USA), hindering insights into cultural barriers like hierarchical norms that impede distribution.^[43]

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