The Distributed Leadership: a commitment to quality school leadership

This study is focused in the leadership as a means of improving school learning. It is known by many studies that leadership is a factor that helps students to achieve better academic results and improve relations with other members of society. It some studies, it is said that the relationship between leadership and learning emphasizes the powerful role of the school leader in helping to create the conditions for effective teaching and learning (OECD, 2009, p. 19), which benefit every agent of the educational community.

This work was developed in Catalonia in three public primary schools, for which it was proposed to study the kind of leadership exercised by the Principal in primary education, and secondly to know the extent to which leadership styles in three Primary Education Public Schools has similarities and differences with the style of distributed leadership. Based on the following questions: What is the type of leadership more in accordance with a school in primary education? How a director does exercises leadership in elementary school?

The method used in this study is qualitative with a descriptive approach. The qualitative model allows study human kind through their abilities and responses to certain actions. The instruments used were the questionnaire, interview and analysis of PEI. The results of the questionnaires were analyzed using the statistical program Excel, and the analysis of the teacher’s discourse in tables.
We have done three interviews with managers, seven questionnaires to teachers and 17 questionnaires to parents.

For this work, it was considered an overview of some aspects of the Catalonia Educational Regulation for primary education in the public sector, including: principles, purposes, autonomy of schools, personal and student organs, selection of the principal, access to school’s administration, functions, training and project management. In every organization it is required a counselor or guide that sets directions, called “the leader”, and their role is to lead; Therefore, another aspect is the educational leadership, which certain aspects are analyzed: functional design, some components of the definition of leadership, leadership types.

This work is positioned based on the type of distributed leadership, considering that is the closest to the changes and needs of the XXI century. It was developed some aspects such as origin, background, concept and characteristic elements of the concept. And another important aspect is the school management, knowing that the school principal, is who is in charge of the organization and the one that (with an indirect way) influences on the environment and on academic achievement spreading dynamism, enthusiasm and motivating for that all agents follow the same direction to achieve the objectives, which in this case is focused on improving learning and good social relations of students and society in general.
In conclusion, this study identifies certain similarities and differences between the leadership in public primary schools and model of distributed leadership.