Why inclusive leadership means giving up (and giving away) power

Written by: Adelee Penner

New Series

Inclusive Leadership: Creating Conditions Where Everyone Thrives

Inclusive leadership is not a program, an initiative, or a checklist — it is a daily practice of expanding who belongs and who has a voice within our systems. This series invites educational leaders to step beyond familiar language and deeply examine how their actions, assumptions, routines, and relationships shape what becomes possible for students, staff, and communities. By blending research, narrative, and reflective provocation, each post explores a different dimension of inclusive leadership: belonging, innovation, voice, psychological safety, shared power, and the future-ready mindsets required for equity to take root.

Together, these pieces offer a companion for leaders committed to creating systems where every person is seen, valued, and able to contribute to the collective work of learning and change.

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Abstract: Traditional leadership models rely on hierarchy, clarity, and centralized control, but inclusive leadership demands a different orientation: shared voice, distributed influence, and collective decision-making. This blog examines how inclusive leaders reshape the architecture of power — not by relinquishing responsibility, but by expanding who gets to participate in meaning-making and direction-setting.

Drawing on research in distributed leadership (Spillane, 2006; Harris, 2013), culturally responsive leadership (Khalifa, 2018), and equity-driven transformation (Theoharis, 2007), this reflection challenges leaders to examine how their habits, structures, and assumptions either reinforce or disrupt existing power dynamics. Through narrative examples, we explore how shared spaces can generate creativity, psychological safety, and collective efficacy. Inclusive leadership becomes not a gesture of goodwill, but a strategic act of system redesign.

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Power is one of leadership’s most unspoken truths. It shapes who gets heard, who gets seen, and who gets to influence what a system becomes. Yet in many educational contexts, power is treated as something fixed — held by those “at the top,” delegated when convenient, and protected when threatened.

Inclusive leadership disrupts this logic entirely.

Instead of viewing power as a finite resource to be distributed carefully, inclusive leaders understand it as something that grows when shared. A system becomes stronger not when a few hold more, but when many hold enough.

Hierarchy Makes Leadership Efficient — But Not Equitable

There is nothing inherently wrong with hierarchy. Schools and systems need role clarity, legal authority, and decision pathways to function. But hierarchy becomes harmful when it becomes the primary architecture of voice.

Research on distributed leadership (Spillane, 2006; Harris, 2013) affirms that leadership is not a position but a relational process — something enacted across people, contexts, and interactions. When only those at the center are empowered to think, question, or influence, the organization loses access to its most diverse and creative intelligence.

Hierarchical efficiency often works against inclusive practice.

• A principal decides the school’s direction without deeply engaging staff.
  
• A district creates a policy and invites schools to “operationalize it.”
  
• Committees include the “usual voices” rather than those closest to the experience.
  
• Change is communicated to people instead of with them.
  

This is leadership that protects control, not belonging.

Inclusive leadership requires something braver: releasing power to create shared space.

A Leadership Coaching Moment: When Shared Space Changes the Story

During a coaching session, a principal described a situation involving the redesign of a literacy initiative. Historically, the initiative had been led by a small group of instructional leaders, with limited input from classroom teachers. Despite strong intentions, the work felt disconnected from daily practice.

Teachers complied, but no one was inspired.
Leaders monitored, but nothing truly shifted.

After months of stagnation, the principal made a bold choice: she invited a cross-section of teachers — including those who often felt unheard — into a shared design process.

This included:

• A first-year teacher working with multilingual learners
  
• A veteran teacher was considered “challenging” because she always pushed back.
  
• A part-time Indigenous educator whose perspective was rarely sought
  
• An educational assistant who knew students deeply but was rarely included in planning
  

The principal opened the session with honesty:
“I’ve been leading this work for you. It’s time to lead it with you.”

The shift was immediate.
The tone in the room changed.
Energy returned.
Ideas surfaced that had never emerged in leadership meetings.

The educator whose dissent was often dismissed became the group’s most insightful strategist.
The early-career teacher illuminated barriers leaders had overlooked.
The EA reframed assumptions about student engagement.
The Indigenous educator helped reimagine literacy in culturally grounded ways.

The principal later said, “I didn’t lose control — I gained a team.”

This is the heart of inclusive leadership: Power shared becomes possibility multiplied.

Voice Is Not an Invitation — It Is a Structure

One of the critical misunderstandings about inclusion is the belief that voice is something leaders “offer” through invitations. But voice is not an event. It is a structural condition.

Leaders must create:

• Meeting protocols that equalize contribution
  
• Decision-making models that incorporate diverse perspectives
  
• Routines that normalize dissent as a source of insight
  
• Expectations that those closest to students shape the work
  
• Cultures where speaking up is safe and valued
  

Amy Edmondson’s (2019) research on psychological safety reinforces that people contribute meaningfully only when the environment makes doing so safe — not when leaders merely ask them to speak.

In other words: Creating voice is leadership work. Sustaining it is system work.

Giving Up Power Is Not the Goal — Redesigning Power Is

Inclusive leaders do not abdicate responsibility. They don’t step back because they lack direction. Instead, they step differently — intentionally designing spaces where the best thinking comes from diverse, distributed sources.

Leaders redesign power by:

• Shifting from “expert” to “co-learner.”
  
• Listening more than speaking
  
• Sharing the pen when decisions are written
  
• Creating shared accountability rather than top-down compliance
  
• Moving from positional authority to relational influence
  

As Theoharis (2007) argues, leaders committed to equity inevitably disrupt existing power patterns — and resistance is a sign that change is happening.

True inclusion is not comfortable.
It is courageous.

Reflection Questions for Leaders

1. How does your current leadership practice reinforce hierarchy — and where might it unintentionally silence others?
   
2. Whose voices shape decisions, and whose are missing or marginalized?
   
3. What would it look like to redesign decision-making structures to distribute influence more equitably?
   
4. How do you respond when someone challenges your perspective — with protection or curiosity?
   
5. What stories might become possible if more people were truly invited into shared space?
   

Let’s talk again soon.  Take good care of yourself.

Adelee

References

Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley.

Harris, A. (2013). Distributed leadership: Friend or foe? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 545–554. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143213497635

Khalifa, M. (2018). Culturally responsive school leadership. Harvard Education Press.

Spillane, J. P. (2006). Distributed leadership. Jossey-Bass.

Theoharis, G. (2007). Social justice educational leaders and resistance: Toward a theory of social justice leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(2), 221–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X06293717

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