Principals have a role clarity problem. Here’s why that matters.

This is part 1 of our series on clarifying the role of the principal in instructional leadership. Subscribe to have our next post delivered straight to your inbox!

Principals have a significant impact on teacher satisfaction and retention as well as student learning experiences and outcomes—priorities at the top of every district’s list. 

Despite the importance of their role, the education sector lacks clarity about what principals should focus on when it comes to leading teaching and learning. What should instructional leadership look like in practice? How should responsibilities be shared throughout school leadership teams? Too often, principals and their supervisors are left to answer these questions on their own. In our work with hundreds of school leaders across the country, we’ve seen how unclear expectations hinder principals’ ability to drive improvement. 

Introducing the Principal Role Clarity project

Last year, we launched a project to document the challenges associated with unclear role expectations for school leaders—and uncover promising solutions. We completed an extensive review of existing research and interviewed leaders from 15 school systems. Our initial findings, summarized below, reveal an urgent need for clear and shared expectations about the principal’s role in instructional leadership.

What we found

Finding 1: Everyone self-identified as an instructional leader, but no one defined what that meant in the same way

Though every leader we spoke to identified themselves as an instructional leader, when asked, “What kinds of actions or activities do you think about when you think about instructional leadership?” their responses ranged from “being present in PLCs and data meetings” to “tracking updates from the state to share with teachers.” 

This variability extended to the broader education sector. Competing ideas about instructional leadership were reflected in both research literature and state guidance—revealing that practitioners, researchers, and policymakers are not working from a shared understanding of what instructional leadership should look like in practice.

Finding 2: Leaders not only understood “instructional leadership” differently, they defined the same instructional leadership activities differently.

Our interviews homed in on three activities most commonly referenced in research and leadership standards: collaborative planning (i.e., PLCs), observation and feedback (i.e., instructional rounds and ongoing feedback), and data practices (i.e., analyzing student data to inform instruction).

We wanted to understand both how leaders defined each of these activities and how they understood their role in them. Much like the term “instructional leadership,” we found a broad range of interpretations of what each of these activities looked like in action.

• Collaborative planning: Descriptions of this activity ranged from detailed lesson preparation protocols to unstructured brainstorming sessions. 
• Observation and feedback: Beyond formal teacher evaluations for state compliance, leaders expressed different ideas about who should be observed, what observers should look for in classrooms, and approach to teacher feedback. 
• Data practices: Leaders articulated different visions for state test data, student work, and historical student achievement data. They also indicated variance in who was responsible for facilitating data meetings and the frequency of those meetings.

Finding 3: School-based instructional roles had a wide range of titles and responsibilities.

Every leader we spoke to described supporting teaching and learning as a team effort. They emphasized the importance of distributed leadership, and most schools had full-time instructional leadership roles other than the principal. However, the responsibilities of these roles varied significantly. Across interviews, we saw:

• Different titles, similar functions: For example, the “academic director” in one district had responsibilities nearly identical to the “dean of instruction” in another.
• Same title, different functions: For example, “instructional coaches” had dramatically different responsibilities across schools and districts.

Variation in the titles and functions of school-based instructional roles was common not only between districts but within the same district. 

Why these findings matter

The lack of common understanding around instructional leadership roles and activities fosters confusion and missed opportunities for improvement across the education sector. Challenges include:

• Training and certification: We cannot adequately prepare future school leaders for a role that lacks a clear definition.
• Staffing: School and district leaders often have to start from scratch when writing job descriptions, determining hiring profiles, and creating management routines.
• Job-embedded support: Conflicting ideas about principals’ responsibilities make an already challenging job even harder.
• Continuous improvement: Without consistent frameworks, it’s difficult to track how well different leadership activities are working and scale successful practices.

Ultimately, this lack of clarity limits our ability to improve outcomes for students. Effective instruction depends on teachers receiving consistent, high-quality support—and that depends on whether principals have the guidance and resources they need to lead.