DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP IN CHINESE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS: FROM INDIVIDUAL AUTHORITY TO COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

Modern educational challenges exceed single formal leader capacity. Often misread as mere delegation, distributed leadership offers a useful analytical lens for Chinese school administration, reshaping individual formal authority into collective governance linking decision making rights, expertise, resources and shared accountability. Benefits for teacher collaboration and selfefficacy depend on relational trust, institutional safeguards and sufficient resources to avoid symbolic participation and unfair workload transfer. In China, distributed leadership must align with the Party led principal responsibility system and national educational priorities. This paper proposes the SHARED Responsibility Framework, framing principals as architects of collective institutional capacity. Authentic distributed leadership requires meaningful stakeholder agency, authority matched with tangible resources, and shared responsibility for equitable student centred outcomes.