Developing leaders or leadership? Learnings from a “distributed leadership” development approach in a research institute[Développer des leaders ou le leadership ? Enseignements d’une démarche de développement du « leadership distribué » dans un institut de recherche]

The development of leadership is a priority for corporate management. Leadership development programs typically promote models built around "one" leader, and tend to give a vision of an "ideal" leader. "Post-heroic" leadership theories have emerged, such as "distributed leadership", but they are mainly studied in terms of their effects, with too little focus on their implementation. Based on a collaborative research project conducted in a research institute, this article focuses on the emergence and appropriation of distributed leadership (DL). We propose a model of DL centered around nine roles. This research and its results allow us to discuss the elements that favor the development of distributed leadership in organizations, particularly by constructing an approach more focused on leadership rather than on individual leaders.