This article argues for a reconceptualization of leadership. Possible substitutes for leadership are reviewed along with a number of existing dualisms. These are rejected in favour of the claim that the leadership of organizations is most appropriately understood as a distributed, rather than as a focused, phenomenon. Various attributes, dimensions and applications of distribution are then considered, and a revised approach to action and influence in organizations centred
on conjointly performed activities is then proposed. For this new formulation a summary is 366 EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT & ADMINISTRATION 28(3) provided of the core concepts of, and recent developments in, activity theory. It is shown that two particular advantages of this approach include the helpful model it provides for contextual
analysis-an aspect sorely neglected by the field of leadership-and its focus on the evolving division of labour in organizations, the prime mover for tracking emerging patterns of distributed leadership. |