Fortalecer el liderazgo distribuido en escuelas y liceos mediante indagación colaborativa

Distributed leadership is used both nationwide and internationally as a key variable in understanding and strengthening the improvement of schools, as it is built on recognition of a distribution of knowledge wherein the tasks of teaching are by their nature both collective and shared. The objective of this project was to understand distributed leadership practices in public schools that undertake innovative projects, seeking to implement a distributed leadership practice development model built on the methodology of collaborative research and to describe the process amongst school management personnel and teachers participating in innovative projects at public primary and secondary schools (20 establishments in Valparaíso Region, Chile), selected using the Multi-Factor Distributed Leadership Questionnaire (Cuestionario Multifactorial de Liderazgo Distribuido). The principal results underscore the importance of shared values and beliefs that enhance the distribution of leadership within establishments; the study also revealed the core areas of learning (professional learning, organizational learning, and learning amongst students); and finally, innovation and change were found to be linked to the distribution of leadership both within the action research team and within the educational community. Crucial success factors include the need to possess a team that is able to mobilize knowledge, skills, and attitudes to facilitate decision making, endowed with the opportunity to implement research tools in order to set priorities, goals, and actions.