In an era of complex challenges and diverse student needs, collective distributed leadership is not a luxury, it’s an essential. At its heart, it is about cultivating the leadership capacity of everyone in a school community. It’s about building systems where students, teachers, and middle leaders all have a voice and agency. And most importantly, it’s about the practice of aligning leadership, learning, and structure to create the conditions for human flourishing.
Why Alignment Matters
“The important thing to understand about this is that your goals as a leader have to correspond to the theory of learning. The structure and processes and culture that you create are an enactment of those understandings and beliefs about learning.”
— Richard Elmore, Leaders of Learning
When these elements are misaligned — when, for example, a school promotes authentic student agency, a high level of independent learning, or self-directed inquiry-based learning but maintains top-down leadership — tension arises. Subcultures form. Growth, both collective and individual, is hindered, and we work in isolation.
Yet alignment is not synonymous with one particular leadership philosophy. In some contexts, a more hierarchical leadership approach can be effective, especially when it aligns with a more structured, teacher-directed mode of learning. The key is not choosing the “right” leadership style, but ensuring that leadership, learning, and culture are coherent. When these elements move together, growth is not managed; it’s inspired.
Of course, leadership style is not only a matter of leading as a response to the learning philosophy, it’s also shaped by experience, culture, and personal locus of control. Leaders who feel empowered to act from within tend to create spaces where others feel empowered too. Those who rely on external authority often unconsciously reproduce inflexible hierarchy.
And this is where the real test of alignment emerges:
If a leadership approach, whether hierarchical or distributed, does not mirror the school’s shared learning philosophy or its learning principles, contradictions surface quickly. Learning principles that celebrate inquiry, identity, collaboration, or learner agency cannot live inside structures that inhibit these very practices. It is the practice, not the poster, that reveals whether alignment is authentic.
Students and Middle Leaders as Co-Creators of Culture
Nowhere is alignment, or misalignment, more visible than in how we position Student (and Teacher) Voice. When distributed leadership exists only in pockets, student agency becomes fragile: powerful inside the silo, but requiring constant energy to sustain across the system. How building a foundational system for distributed student leadership can enhance student voice is described in What If…? From Imagination to Action. What matters here is the broader insight: student agency becomes cultural only when the larger leadership ecosystem supports it, and when alignment is authentic.
Middle leaders, too, are essential co-creators of that culture. They sit at the intersection between vision and implementation, acting as both cultural and strategic bridges. Yet, again, the degree of their empowerment varies, depending on the leading identity of the senior leadership. In some contexts, middle leaders already serve as catalysts; in others, they must navigate more hierarchical structures that restrict their agency.
And what a loss when they aren’t empowered in the very fields that form the core of school culture:
Influence in these roles often precedes authority. You lead not from position, but from presence — yet sustaining that influence depends on systems that recognize distributed leadership not just in theory, but in practice. This tension is not failure; it is the natural reality of cultural change. True distributed leadership unfolds gradually, as trust, systems, and shared understanding develop over time. Distributed leadership inspires growth; it is not delegation, and it is not merely the sharing of isolated practices.
Intercultural Listening and the Coaching Mindset
Distributed leadership doesn’t mean everyone does everything. It means the right people, with the right support, lead the right work. To build that capacity, and to nurture self-directed learners, cultivating a culture of Cognitive Coaching®, grounded in reflective dialogue, identity awareness, and psychological safety, can help.
Effective coaching begins with great listening, but great listeners aren’t sponges (Zenger & Folkman). They’re trampolines: they don’t merely absorb, but bounce back ideas, amplify clarity, and energize reflection. However, in intercultural school communities, even the most well-intentioned listening can fall short without intercultural competence. A pause, a smile, or a moment of silence can mean something entirely different across cultures. Developing intercultural competence — the awareness, knowledge, and empathy to navigate these nuances — allows us to listen beyond words and connect with deeper meaning.
The strongest “listening trampolines” are built on:
Leadership, like learning, is never culturally neutral. Our ways of leading — how we listen, give feedback, and build trust — are shaped by cultural conditioning and lived experience. In international schools, this means that effective coaching is not only relational, it is intercultural. Recognizing how our own cultural lens influences dialogue allows us to empower others with greater intention and equity.
We often ask, “How do we lead change?” But perhaps the better question is, “How do we create the conditions for change to emerge — organically, adaptively, beautifully — like a murmuration in flight?”
Elke Greite is an International Baccalaureate educator, middle leader, and honorary lecturer with over 24 years of experience in international education. She teaches visual arts and Theory of Knowledge at Dresden International School, where she also leads the Arts and Design department and coordinates the Theory of Knowledge program. Alongside her work in education, Elke supports creatives, leaders, and educators through identity-centred facilitation, reflective coaching, and creative collaboration — fostering purposeful teamwork, strengthening communication, and inspiring collaborative innovation. Grounded in Cognitive Coaching® and identity-centred methodologies, her work fosters reflective practice and self-directed growth. A committed advocate for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice, Elke believes that empowering students with authentic leadership opportunities and developing their critical and creative thinking skills are essential foundations for sustainable growth and human flourishing.
