Conceptualizing and implementing the distributed leadership practices in Indian organizations : Preliminary findings

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to measure employees’ attitude toward distributed leadership (DL) practices and investigate the challenges involved in implementing DL practices in Indian organizations. Design/methodology/approach – This study is conducted within an exploratory research framework. The data were collected from 180 young middle-level executives from a diverse group of industry sectors belonging to private and multinational organization located in northern part of India. Unstructured (personal interviews and focus group interviews) and structured interview schedule (questionnaire) were administered to measure employees’ attitude and challenges of implementation. Findings – The qualitative and quantitative analytic strategies were adopted to analyze the data. Results of exploratory factors analysis showed the existence of five underlying dimensions about the significance of DL practices, namely, self-initiatives, improved functioning, achieving organizational goals, accountability and mutual respect. Furthermore, results showed the importance of contextual factors in implementing DL practices namely horizontal structure, professionalism, work commitment and power sharing. Also, the attitudinal dimensions were found to be positively correlated with the dimensions of implementing DL practices in Indian work context. Research limitations/implications – This study strengthens the importance of measuring employees’ attitudes that can be a good predictor of implementing best practices in organizations. The major limitation of this study is of the small sample size and has been limited to young managers. Originality/value – This is an original paper based on the empirical data from Indian managers. No study is conducted on the concept of distributing leadership in Indian work context on a similar or related theme.