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The effect of shared leadership at school The effect of shared leadership at school is contingent on the key players involved and how they view their missions. Conflicting thoughts on how shared leadership influences student engagement result in a variety of interpretations by researchers. Sharing leadership also impacts how teachers interact with one another, whether they possess relationships where they reinforce one another or feel distant from the organization.

One view is that sharing leadership among more people does not necessarily bring positive student outcomes. Some researchers have called the influence of shared leadership into question, suggesting that the influence of shared leadership is statistically non-significant (Leithwood & Jantzi, 1999), and indicating that shared leadership is "not a significant factor for students’ participation in or engagement with school" (Silins et al, 2002). Timperley (2005, p.417) also underlines the significance of promoting the quality of shared leadership activities, emphasizing that shared leadership has risks associated with “greater distribution of incompetence.”

Conversely, it has been argued that shared leadership is positively related to students’ achievement. In addition, shared leadership enables teachers to employ certain methodologies or instructional content. Leithwood and Mascall(2008) conclude that shared leadership eventually influences students’ math achievement indirectly by effecting teacher motivation. Similarly, a study by Heck and Hallinger(2009) shows that the development of school shared leadership has an indirect impact on students’ academic growth in math, mutually reinforcing academic capacity of teachers and students over time. Researchers and writers, such as Camburn and Han(2009), have also remarked that widespread leadership promotes teachers exposure to plentiful instructional resources and the likelihood that they will employ these instruction practices. Camburn and Han’s study (2009), however, does not present empirical evidence that shared leadership is associated with students’ outcomes.

Other research focused on the impact of shared leadership notes the teachers’emotional change. Work by Hulpia and Devos(2010) reveals that leadership practices such as the sharing of leadership roles, social interaction, cooperation of the leadership team, and inclusive decision-making, positively reinforce teachers’ commitment to the organization. It has been underscored that teachers’ academic optimism, which refer to trust, teacher efficacy, and organizational citizenship behavior as well, are heavily and positively associated with planned approaches to leadership distribution (Mascall et al,2008).