International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 13, 251–269 (2011) DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2370.2011.00306.x Distributed Leadership in Organizations: A Review of Theory and Researchijmr_306 251..269 Richard Bolden Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4ST, UK Corresponding author email:
[email protected] The aim of this paper is to review conceptual and empirical literature on the concept of distributed leadership (DL) in order to identify its origins, key arguments and areas for further work. Consideration is given to the similarities and differences between DL and related concepts, including ‘shared’, ‘collective’, ‘collaborative’, ‘emergent’, ‘co-’ and ‘democratic’ leadership. Findings indicate that, while there are some common theo- retical bases, the relative usage of these concepts varies over time, between countries and between sectors. In particular, DL is a notion that has seen a rapid growth in interest since the year 2000, but research remains largely restricted to the field of school education and of proportionally more interest to UK than US-based academics. Several scholars are increasingly going to great lengths to indicate that, in order to be ‘distrib- uted’, leadership need not necessarily be widely ‘shared’ or ‘democratic’ and, in order to be effective, there is a need to balance different ‘hybrid configurations’ of practice. The paper highlights a number of areas for further attention, including three factors relating to the context of much work on DL (power and influence; organizational boundaries and context; and ethics and diversity), and three methodological and developmental challenges (ontology; research methods; and leadership development, reward and recognition).