Distributing Leadership and Boosting Organizational Change: An Action Research

Abstract

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of distributed leadership practice on initiating and sustaining a successful and effective organizational change process within a small-sized higher education unit. The study was designed as an action research and followed a 16-week action plan to initiate a change plan. The study group consists of 18 full-time instructors, a department head and a program coordinator (it includes all the staff, sampling not required) who are all, in the broader sense, responsible for teaching English to young adult learners, preparing the curriculum and materials in the Department of Foreign Languages of the higher education institution during the first half of the academic year 2011-2012. For the study, data-collection methods were observation by the researcher – at the same time, program coordinator- and two focus-group interviews with instructors, also held by the researcher. The findings indicate that distributing leadership enhances the organizational change experience, contributes to cooperation and collaboration among staff and leads to a true change process. As a useful alternative to top-down, enforced change attempts and individual leadership practices, distributed leadership practice motivates the staff to be actively involved in organizational change experience and improves the quality of organizational experience in addition to boosting cooperation and collaboration.