Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2016 in the subject Education - Educational Tests & Measurements, grade: 2.1, , language: English, abstract: This study investigated the effects of distributed leadership practices on the job satisfaction and motivation of teachers for increased academic performance from the perspective of a basic secondary school situated in an urban area of Kazakhstan. It employed the critical paradigm to examine the teachers' motivational levels and job satisfaction as members of the decision-making processes in the case study school. Therefore, this study used five semi-structured interviews on five randomly selected participants who gave the qualitative data analyzed. The coding of the gathered data identified five key themes analyzed in section 4. The findings indicate that the participants unequivocally challenged the hierarchical leadership style witnessed in the country's public schools since they feel that they are oppressive in nature and demean the teachers' opinions leading to teachers' frustration in the teaching profession and poor schools academic performance. Consequently, this study proposes the distributed leadership form to enable teachers to develop a sense of ownership, responsibility, collaboration, and fulfilled life that arises from being part of the decision-making process in their school.