Principals deeply know their communities and are uniquely positioned to drive instructional improvement across classrooms. But what should instructional leadership look like when it comes to the day-to-day responsibilities of a school leader? And how do leaders divide these instructional responsibilities within their leadership teams? Principals and their supervisors are often left to answer these questions for themselves, with little guidance or examples to follow. 

Through years of partnering with school leaders across the country, we’ve seen how this lack of clarity can make the already hard job of being a principal even harder.

Learning from examples of clear and effective instructional leadership

We hope that the examples shared in this paper can help inform leaders’ choices when organizing their own work and teams. Download the paper to: 

• Get insights into how leaders define and navigate core instructional leadership activities like collaborative planning, observation and feedback, and data practices
• Learn from different principal staffing models that provide role clarity, ensure coverage for key tasks, and offer ongoing support

Complete the form below to access the full paper, or check out the highlights in our executive summary.

Executive summary

In nine years of working with schools, systems (i.e., traditional school districts and charter management organizations), and states across the country, we’ve repeatedly seen principals struggle to understand their role as an “instructional leader.” Conflicting, unclear ideas about what “instructional leadership” means in action make the already hard job of being a principal even harder. We’ve seen countless dedicated principals working to support teachers and students without ever receiving clear guidance on how to lead instruction confidently and effectively.

To learn more about how principals and system leaders 1) thought about the key functions of instructional leadership and 2) distributed those functions between themselves and their teams, we interviewed principals and principal supervisors in 15 systems. We found three clear trends:

• Finding 1: Everyone self-identified as an instructional leader, but no one defined what that meant in the same way.
• Finding 2: Leaders not only understood “instructional leadership” differently, they defined the same instructional leadership activities (i.e., collaborative planning, observation and feedback, and data practices) differently.
• Finding 3: School-based instructional roles had a wide range of titles and responsibilities.

These findings signal a significant leadership role clarity problem in the education sector, particularly when it comes to principals’ role in supporting teachers and students. We found little alignment about both the core activities (i.e., what leaders should do) and how to distribute responsibilities (i.e., who-does-what).

Though interviews illuminated the extent of this misalignment, among a subset of participants, we also found promising examples of 1) clarity about core instructional leadership activities and 2) approaches to responsibility distribution, which we mapped to three models of principal as instructional leader.

Model 1: Delivery

Principal personally executes 

In Model 1, the principal personally executes instructional leadership activities while delegating a majority of non-instructional activities to others. In this model, the principal personally sets the vision for the instructional support that teachers receive, ensures logistical requirements are in place (e.g., time in the schedule), and facilitates the delivery of this support.

Model 2: Coach

Principal coaches others to execute (Coach) 

In Model 2, the principal personally sets the vision for the instructional support that teachers receive and then selects, coaches, evaluates, and holds others accountable for the facilitation of instructional leadership activities. Unlike Model 1, the principal is not solely responsible for personally delivering instructional support.

Model 3: Designate

Principal designates other(s) to execute

In Model 3, the principal focuses time and expertise on the non-instructional parts of the role. The principal and/or system leader supports effective instructional leadership at the school by 1) designating another role (e.g., assistant principal, dean of instruction) as the fully empowered instructional leader with authority to drive decisions about instructional leadership activities and 2) ensuring that designee has the support of a “more knowledgeable other”^ to facilitate their development. The principal also contributes to the success of this model by backing the designee’s decisions and ensuring all logistical requirements (e.g., time in the schedule) for instructional leadership activities align with the designee’s needs and are in place.

 ^“Vygotsky’s concept of the ‘Zone of Proximal Development.’”

These findings and promising examples have implications for school, system, and state leaders, organizations that support schools and systems, researchers, and education funders. Additionally, they suggest that strengthening instruction requires clarifying expectations for instructional leadership throughout the education sector. We hope that this paper can spur some of those conversations.