Revealing the Nexus Between Distributed Leadership and Communities of Practice

Abstract

Distributed leadership is a leadership approach that aligns with, and supports, the creating and sustaining of Communities of Practice (CoP) in higher education. Agreeing with the editors’ proposition that CoP need to be positioned within the broader social learning literature, the proposition is expanded to consider the relationship between CoP and distributed leadership (DL). This chapter argues that while the focus of DL is on building leadership capacity, its synergistic relationship with CoP results in it being indirectly linked to social learning. On the one hand, DL provides the context in which CoP are created and sustained, and, on the other hand CoP contribute to the enabling of distributed leadership. Together they support the social learning that occurs within the CoP. DL provides the ‘best fit’ for creating and sustaining a community of people within the CoPs and thus social learning (Green and Ruutz in Engaging communities, proceedings of the 31st HERDSA annual conference, Rotorua, pp. 163–172, 2008).