Can Distributed Leadership be Trained? A Field Experiment on Aligned Division of Leadership Tasks in Public Organizations

Distributed leadership, characterized by leadership tasks divided among managers and employees, has shown promise in promoting positive workplace outcomes. However, its training applicability within public organizations remains underexplored. Based on a pre-registered field experiment that provides randomized organizational development interventions in distributed leadership compared to goal-oriented leadership and motivation interventions in four different public service sectors, this study examines training effects on distributed leadership behavior and perceived alignment of leadership processes. Our findings provide limited support to the expectation that the distributed leadership training program directly increases employee-perceived distributed leadership behavior and alignment compared to the two other training programs. However, organizational units with low pre-training levels of aligned leadership substantially increase their distributed leadership behaviors and alignment through organizational development interventions—regardless of the training content. This study thereby highlights important conditions for the trainability of distributed leadership within public organizations when managers and employees are trained together.