Since the Covid 19 pandemic, the German school system has increasingly turned its attention to the challenge of leading schools forward into a “culture of digitality” (Stalder, 2016). Recent political decisions have given this a new impetus (KMK, 2021) by trying to emphasize the integral character of the need to face digitality in every aspect of schools. In the German school system, such tasks are traditionally delegated to the individual school, which has gained more recognition through an amplified autonomy and higher responsibility (Heinrich & Altrichter, 2008). It is expected that the schools are capable of using the leeway granted to them, define schoolwide goals and strive – given the local circumstances – for the best possible outcomes for their student learnings. In line with the tendency for schools to become more autonomous, it is being discussed which forms of management and organization can best support modern schools in this development. At the individual school level, certain members of the school staff, e.g. principals, co-leaders or middle management are addressed as change agents and providers of ideas for school-wide development. Driving school development forward not only requires the commitment, but also the engagement and responsibility of the teaching staff and the school community. Especially since the teachers already have a strong influence in the school’s decision-making processes due to relevance of conference resolutions (Kuper, 2008). The efforts off the professional teaching staff are guided and shaped by the school's leadership (Bonsen, 2016).

In the research project Participative digital school improvement, promoted by the German Ministry of Education and Research and financed by the European Union, we are investigating the prerequisites for a distributed digital leadership in the coordination of digital school development. A distributed perspective on school leadership has been elaborated only sparsely in the German research landscape in comparison to the rich international research situation. While Bonsen (2016) transfers theoretical concepts from the international discourse into German, Muslic et al. (2015), for example, examine how school principals, teachers, department heads and the school supervisory board coordinate the handling of learning assessments against the background of new governance. The results show how school principals can delegate responsibility to a middle level of the committees and continue to support them in the process. In a meta perspective, Muslic et al. state that the distributed perspective in German discourse is essentially characterized by the premise “that schools are considered as places (organizations) of professional work […] with the individual responsibility of each teacher for their pedagogical practice” (2021, 85f). The corresponding leadership style would be prima inter pares with a strong restriction through the conflict-concealing principle of collegiality (Kuper 2008) and a shared interest in a flat horizontal organizational architecture, so that the autonomy of the individual is preserved.

While it is impossible to predict which organizational and governance models are appropriate for schools and their future challenges, the digital transformation suggests that leadership in schools should not be viewed as exclusively hierarchical or as a singular independent achievement. In the project Participative digital school improvement at the University of Cologne, we take the concept of distributed leadership as a starting point for reconstructing the relationship between leadership and participation in digital school development. Based on the assumption that leadership is a „collective social process emerging through the interactions of multiple actors“ (García-Carreño 2021, 228) we analyze how steering  groups in two different school consisting of people in both formalized and situationally mandated leadership positions (Stralla et al. 2022) negotiate  the decision making in processes of digitization in two schools. The members of both groups represent the various interest groups in the School community. An inclusive university school in the city of Cologne.

The project Participative digital school improvement at the University of Cologne collaborates with one elementary school and one comprehensive school in Research-Practice Communities. Both schools have shown a fragmented, yet highly elaborated, commitment to digitalization. To this extent, individual stakeholders have taken responsibility for digitalization without a comprehensive claim to validity for schools. Design-based research accompanies and supports the development of a mandatory media concept, that should be in line with the general school program and also implies the qualification of staff (MSB, BASS 16-13 No. 4). Both schools began the development process in summer 2023 and are aiming to adopt the media concept in 2026. During the process the researchers take part in the meetings of two working groups made up of members of the school community. These are tasked with organizing the development process and enable colleagues to participate in the change efforts. In the elementary school, the working group consists of two teachers who act as the school's media representatives and digital coordinators. These teachers are supported by the school principal and representatives of the other professions at the school. In the comprehensive school, the working group consists of the principal, members of the school management, a teacher responsible for media, two parent representatives, two pupils and a teacher involved in digitalization. The group is supported by an external media expert. In this research-practice partnership (Asbrand et al., 2019), the researchers were actively involved in shaping the development from the very beginning. Under the premise of communication at eye level, research findings are reported back to the schools to support the development process. The resulting in-situ (12 meetings of the steering group, 2 School development days and 1 meeting of a school management group) and interview data are analyzed using the documentary method and reconstructed with regard to the orientations and implicit knowledge of the practice (Asbrand & Martens, 2018; Przyborski, 2004). While from an academic point of view, the aim is to explicit the implicit knowledge of practice (Martens & Asbrand, 20022), the exchange with practitioners is intended to explore the conditions for successful school improvement as well as leadership and participation.

In this paper we present empirical findings of the initial phase of the school development processes. We focus on the connection between the responsibility of members of the school management and those (un)officially responsible for digital and media and how they make way for each other. The data shows that both steering groups, while negotiating the starting point for change, are balancing between demands and constraints for innovation. In both cases, members draw on past development practices and use them as a positive or negative experience background for structuring the development process. This shows that both the culture of cooperation between school management and middle management and the culture of development work are important. In parallel to this negotiation, the school leaders decide about the legitimacy of the group in relation to the other decision-makers in the school. This matter seems to be pivotal for the power of the group. Innovative processes therefore depend on the given rules and standards according to which decisions are made at the school. School leaders can manipulate how closely they guide the efforts of steering groups for development. This has an impact on how ideas close to the schools existing practices dominate. The initial situation of a state-imposed development mandate puts the school community under a certain pressure. Hereby the commitment of individuals, that were initially able to exercise some freedom, is tested in terms of its compatibility with the dominant identity of the school as a whole. This integration process brings together rationalities relating to digitality and school organization. While it may seem as if the distributed properties of leading in digital school improvement subpresses the autonomy of individuals, innovations are given a form that enables a greater scope of reception in the school.

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