School leadership is considered a critical factor in educational success. This study explored the perception of distributed leadership practices as a catalyst for school improvement. This qualitative research draws on phenomenological experience of 15 headteachers and teachers from public basic schools in the Tafo-Pankrono Municipal, Ashanti Region, Ghana. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed thematically. The findings revealed that distributed leadership improves instructional quality and staff collaboration, resulting in better student outcomes and school performance. The study further revealed that distributed leadership fosters ownership and engagement among staff by promoting shared responsibilities, collaboration, and active participation in school management. Additionally, the study revealed that distributed leadership reduces headteachers’ workload, creating a more equitable task distribution that fosters teamwork and ensures no aspect of school management is overlooked. The study concludes that adopting distributed leadership practices can significantly enhance school performance and ensure sustainable improvement. The study recommends that headteachers share administrative tasks to allow more time to focus on instructional leadership. The study recommends headteachers need to relinquish power and authority and shift away from leadership as position to leadership as interaction. The study further recommends that headteachers need to build a high degree of reciprocal trust to negotiate successfully the fault lines of formal and informal leadership practice.
", "languages": [ { "id": "eng", "title": { "en": "English" } } ], "publication_date": "2026-02-07", "publisher": "AMO Publisher", "resource_type": { "id": "publication-article", "title": { "de": "Zeitschriftenartikel", "en": "Journal article" } }, "rights": [ { "description": { "en": "The Creative Commons Attribution license allows re-distribution and re-use of a licensed work on the condition that the creator is appropriately credited." }, "icon": "cc-by-icon", "id": "cc-by-4.0", "props": { "scheme": "spdx", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode" }, "title": { "en": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International" } } ], "subjects": [ { "subject": "Distributed leadership" }, { "subject": "Decision-making" }, { "subject": "School improvement" }, { "subject": "Teachers" } ], "title": "Exploring Distributed Leadership as a Catalyst for Basic School Improvement in the Ghanaian Context" }, "parent": { "access": { "owned_by": { "user": "604255" }, "settings": { "accept_conditions_text": null, "allow_guest_requests": false, "allow_user_requests": false, "secret_link_expiration": 0 } }, "communities": { "default": "e2be58e5-9fd1-4ecb-acd3-290c93fabfd0", "entries": [ { "access": { "member_policy": "open", "members_visibility": "public", "record_submission_policy": "open", "review_policy": "closed", "visibility": "public" }, "children": { "allow": false }, "created": "2024-01-22T11:12:56.442769+00:00", "custom_fields": {}, "deletion_status": { "is_deleted": false, "status": "P" }, "id": "e2be58e5-9fd1-4ecb-acd3-290c93fabfd0", "links": {}, "metadata": { "curation_policy": "", "organizations": [ { "name": "AMO Publisher" } ], "page": "European Journal of Contemporary Education and E-Learning (EJCEEL) (ISSN 2786-8710) aims to facilitate shaping a novel, broader view of issues in present-day education, enhancing the caliber of research through the active use of best international practices, and integrating the achievements of various sciences and knowledge areas. The journal is intended for readers in the scholarly community who deal with different education sectors.
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