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This narrative inquiry examined the experiences of new urban principals as they transitioned into their role during their first year. The research questions focused on the challenges new principals faced and the types and effectiveness of support that were offered. Findings confirmed that principals addressed student behavior and campus appearance before shifting their attention to classroom instruction. Coaching, mentoring, and change of principal workshops were helpful district support.

Districts across the country are calling on their principal supervisors to shift from mainly focusing on operations and compliance to dedicating their time to help principals grow as instructional leaders. Learning theory elaborates that such support for principals demands that supervisors take a teaching-and-learning approach – which the authors define as consistently using particular strategies that are characteristic of high quality teachers and mentors across various apprenticeship settings – to their work with principals on their instructional leadership. Prior research on leadership supports these shifts but does not examine the conditions under which principal supervisors are able to persist and grow in taking a teaching-and-learning approach specifically. What are those conditions? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper addresses that question through a re-examination of data from two studies with socio-cultural learning theory as the conceptual framework. The authors primarily use observation data (approximately 760 hours), supplemented by 344 interviews and reviews of hundreds of documents.

Contrary to extant research the authors did not associate high quality outside coaching with the positive cases of principal supervision. Nor did hiring principal supervisors with requisite prior knowledge explain why some principal supervisors regressed and grew. Findings underscore the importance of supervisors of principal supervisors (SPSs) being principal supervisors’ main mentors and principal supervisors not over-relying on others for assistance but actively leading their own learning, especially through work with colleagues and protecting their time themselves.

This analysis distinguishes conditions that support principal supervisors in taking a teaching-and-learning approach to their work with principals. The authors elaborate key roles for chief academic officers and others who supervise principal supervisors typically overlooked in policy and research on district leadership. Findings reinforce the importance of mentoring to learning and also district leaders serving as main mentors for each other, rather than relying on outside coaching.

Research on principal supervisors (PSs) is an emerging field, and principal supervision for racial equity has not yet been studied or theorized. Conducted in partnership with practicing district leaders, the purpose of this paper is to examine current PS leadership in three districts at various points of engagement in equitable leadership practices and set forth a framework for conceptualizing systems equitable leadership practice.

This collaborative study emerged from an EdD course project in which groups of practitioner–scholars identified and collected qualitative interview, survey and artifact data about problems of practice in their districts. University researchers supported data collection and conducted analyses across settings, building on Ishimaru and Galloway’s (2014) equitable leadership practices framework.

Equitable PS leadership practices were variable. No district engaged with “proficiency” across all drivers of equitable leadership practice, but the district that engaged in equitable PS practices most deeply framed the work of schooling as a race-explicit endeavor, suggesting that framing is a fundamental driver.

This paper builds on PS and equity-focused leadership research by adding a systems-level equity focus.

Findings suggest that districts should focus on equity framing as the foundation for principal support and development.

This researcher/practitioner–scholar collaboration shows how practitioner–scholars provide focus and expertise to the field unavailable to traditional researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceived efficacy of a US-based national principal mentor training program.

A sample of 370 protégés who received services from principal mentors in a national mentor internship program were invited to complete an electronic survey. Responses were obtained from 54 protégés.

The 54 respondents rated the mentor program highly, indicating that mentors were well prepared, good listeners, and instrumental in strengthening their instructional leadership.

This study provides preliminary information on the perceived efficacy of the program. To more fully understand the needs of new principals and the value of varying mentor approaches, follow-up interviews, a research design that provides for data to be disaggregated by specific mentor trainers and dates/locations of training sessions, and comparative data from protégés supported by mentors prepared by other programs are needed.

Protégés reported high job satisfaction and recommended the program to others.

New principals reported that the principal mentoring was critical to their adjustment and success during their first year. This is the only known principal mentor program requiring a nine-month internship. The outcomes revealed the value of evaluating perceptions of protégés for continuous quality improvement.

This study was designed to test the relationship between principal support of student psychological needs and faculty trust in students. Without direct empirical evidence to draw from, the line of reasoning integrated evidence on social-cognitive processes involved in trust formation and conversation theory to advance two hypotheses: (1) After accounting for school and leadership conditions, principal support of student psychological needs will be related to school differences in faculty trust in students; (2) The relationship between principal support of student psychological needs and faculty trust in students is mediated by a positive view of the teaching task.

Hypotheses were tested with a nonexperimental, correlational research design using ex post facto data. Due to the hierarchical structure of the data, hypotheses were tested with a 2-2-1 multilevel mediation model in HLM 7.03 with restricted maximum likelihood estimation.

Findings were consistent with the hypothesized relationships – principal support of student psychological needs was related to faculty trust in students and this relationship was mediated by teacher perceptions of the teaching task.

School research has primarily examined interpersonal antecedents of trust, focusing on behaviors and characteristics that position a person or group as trustworthy. This study extends trust research to the cognitive side of the formation process, calling attention to the function of mental representation in shaping trust discernments. Results suggest that cognitive processes hold promise as both a source of faculty trust in students and as a malleable mental structure that school leaders can shape through conversation.

Aims primarily to examine how stressful kindergarten principals as leaders and managers of their schools found their work to be, and if such job stress was related to negative emotions and job satisfaction. The secondary aim was to explore if social support from a close friend could reduce and buffer job stress. Seventy‐seven kindergarten principals in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire containing the variables of interest. The results showed that the principals found their work to be moderately stressful. However, emotional and informational support from a close friend had beneficial impacts on stress.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate school principals' leadership styles in Cyprus in relation to students' support for special education needs within the context of inclusive education.

The original type of evidence was qualitative empirical research through the examination of four case studies in school organizations with a high number of students with special education needs. Using the interview protocol, data on school principals' leadership styles were collected from school principals and teachers. The empirical development theory method was used to analyze the data.

The findings suggest that in the respective school organizations, a combination of all leadership styles can support the desired outcomes of students with special education needs, thereby promoting the inclusive education aspect in school organizations. However, there was a preference for the entrepreneurial leadership style, which connects the external leadership dimension with school principalship.

These findings could assist in shaping a specific educational policy that includes professional development for school principals in entrepreneurship in order to support students with special education needs. Furthermore, the results could be compared to those in other contexts where school principals' leadership styles and practices are promoted in relation to the support of students with special education needs.

As states and districts increasingly focus on school leadership training programs, one less discussed yet vital component is the support mechanisms that can accelerate school leadership performance. This chapter highlights the unique school coaching model developed by NYC Leadership Academy (Leadership Academy), a national organization focused on improving student outcomes through effective leadership practice. Using a standards-based, facilitative approach to coaching early-career leaders in high-need schools, the Leadership Academy has developed a rigorous process for training and developing a cadre of coaches to provide intensive coaching support to school leaders that focuses on strengthening their leadership performance. The chapter discusses the methods and results of the Leadership Academy’s coaching model for the 139 principals leading high-need schools as part of the U.S. Department of Education’s School Leadership Program (SLP) and offers insights into school leadership coaching as a distinct professional practice in education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine principal mentoring, a process that is significant in principal identification, socialization, development, and retention.

The study was framed within the social constructivism paradigm and thematically examined individual perspectives to develop the thematic constructs relevant to the participants’ experiences of and perceptions about principal mentoring.

Thematic analysis of the interview data from 16 principals from the state of Georgia, USA, revealed five major themes related to leaders’ experiences of and perceptions about principal mentoring: mentoring as recruitment; mentoring as socialization; mentoring as support; mentoring as professional development; and mentoring as reciprocal learning.

These findings were limited to the sample of principals used for this analysis. Researchers are encouraged to examine principal mentoring in other contexts.

The results of this inquiry suggest the need for formal and informal mentoring opportunities for new and experienced principals and call for further research on comparing mentoring practices between the large and small schools systems.

The paper identifies mentoring as an important path to principal effectiveness and contributes to the corpus of literature on educational mentoring by examining the perceptions and experiences of new and experienced principals about the mentoring they received and provided.

Creating inclusive schools for students with disabilities is a major leadership responsibility for principals throughout the world. Each national, regional and local context is different, but every principal can help create and support inclusive schools. The purpose of this article is to describe the evolving context of inclusive education and school leadership in the United States aligning what is known to an established leadership framework (Hitt and Tucker, 2016), as there are similarities between the Hitt and Tucker domains and the work of leaders in inclusive schools. The authors emphasize that inclusive leadership is consistent with existing conceptualizations of principals' work. The authors consider specific policies and organizational conditions that support inclusive schools and highlight successes and continuing challenges for principals that can be applied throughout the world.

This paper utilizes an exploratory approach to review the US policy-related and empirical literature on school leadership for effective inclusive schools. The authors draw across time from research syntheses in school and inclusive leadership from leading journals in educational leadership, special education and edited volumes focused on school leadership. The authors analyze common themes centered on leadership practice, organizational and social conditions and challenges.

The research review identified effective leadership practices that support inclusive education in the United States and provides a critical discussion of how these findings relate to international research and practice.

The paper considers the relevance of national policy contexts coupled with a review of school leadership for inclusive schools that is insightful for policymakers and practitioners seeking to create more inclusive schools throughout the world.

The paper offers a situated review of leadership for inclusive schools in the United States. As such, this review lays the foundation for a comparative and international conversation on school leadership for inclusion.