Taking a distributed perspective on leading professional learning networks

Abstract

Leadership is an essential contributor to effective professional networking within education. In the pursuit of school and system improvement, leaders at all levels are being challenged to collaborate and network in order to secure the best positive outcomes for students. Professional learning networks are one of the main developments in many education systems in recent years. The article takes a distributed perspective on leading professional learning networks. Firstly, the article explores the contribution that leadership makes to effective networking and productive collaboration; secondly, it considers the challenges of leading collective action; and thirdly, it proposes that distributed leadership could offer an important theoretical framing to understand, in greater depth, the nature and impact of professional collaboration, particularly but not exclusively, in the form of networks. Consequently, the article argues that distributed leadership offers a useful framework for future empirical enquiry and analysis into the effective leadership of professional learning networks. Finally, it proposes that the knowledge base on networks and networking should move away from largely normative descriptions, self-report and over assertion to far more sophisticated data collection and analytical processes that would generate more rigorous and reliable evidence on the intentions, processes and outcomes of professional learning networks.