In recent years, specifically in the last decade, there has been a substantial amount of research emphasizing the importance of leadership in the field of education. Distributed leadership is of interest because it provides for a higher level of group problem-solving and higher rates of effective decisions; therefore, it is a leadership model that encourages collaboration, knowledge sharing, and consistent interactions. This study investigated how two types of leaders of special education, administrators of special education and special education teacher leaders, using Q-sort methodology, prioritize distributed leadership statements. Two factors emerged from the findings: (1) planned distributors, who were generally younger, more educated with less experience at their current position, and working in larger school districts with higher rates of poverty; and (2) embedded distributors, who were predominantly more experienced, less educated, older females working in smaller and more affluent school districts. The results of this study laid the foundation for understanding how the perceptions of distributed leadership shift over the course of careers as leaders of special education mature in leadership positions. . Using the qualitative and quantitative data from this study, a continuum of distributed leadership is proposed along which three contexts are situated: planned, embedded, and natural.