This article focuses on James P. Spillane's research on distributed leadership. Spillane is the principal investigator for one of the largest studies ever conducted on distributed leadership in education. With $1 million from the National Science Foundation, he has for the past five years led a team of other researchers at Northwestern in studying several schools in Chicago to see what they look like when observed through the distributed-leadership lens. The research involved extensive interviews, observations, and surveys of school staff members. The schools they studied used a range of methods that allowed distributed leadership to occur. The researchers also tapped the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago, which has amassed troves of information on that city's schools from test scores and the consortium's own surveys. Spillane has been highly critical of the way most leadership-preparation programs focus on individuals, stating that school accountability structures often work against distributed leadership by putting so much of the onus on principals. He argues, though, that it is too early to make any claims about distributed leadership and its connection to student outcomes. Instead, he sees it as an important "diagnostic frame"--a tool to help leaders think strategically about exploiting the expertise in their buildings.