The thought of shared leadership offers teachers a vision of more control of central issues of concern, opportunities for significant decision making, and the development of a more democratic environment. This paper presents an account of the success and frustrations encountered by an elementary school throughout an 18-month period of school-based management implementation. An ethnographic indepth study of a single school site was conducted. Data were gathered by the facilitator/researcher who played the role of participant observer. The following concerns were addressed: (1) to what extent would teachers be empowered? (2) how would teachers react to greater opportunities for decision making? (3) what additional decisions would teachers be allowed to make? (4) what are the perceived successful aspects of school-based management? (5) what the perceived roadblocks that arose during implementation? and (6) how would students' academic lives be enhanced as a result of this governance change? The main body of the document discusses the following themes identified as salient by the study: (1) the issue of trust, (2) questioning the value of commitment and collaboration, (3) confusion of roles and responsibilities, (4) the challenge of focusing on student needs, (5) administrative expectations and limitations, and (6) the establishment of open communication. (Contains 18 references.) (LL)