Principal Leadership and School Performance: An Integration of Transformational and Instructional Leadership

Abstract

Focusing on school leadership relations between principals and teachers, this study examines the potential of their active collaboration around instructional matters to enhance the quality of teaching and student performance. The analysis is grounded in two conceptions of leadership—transformational and instructional. The sample comprises 24 nationally selected restructured schools—8elementary, 8middle, and 8high schools. In keeping with the multilevel structure of the data, the primary analytic technique is hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). The study finds that transformational leadership is a necessary but insufficient condition for instructional leadership. When transformational and shared instructional leadership coexist in an integrated form of leadership, the influence on school performance, measured by the quality of its pedagogy and the achievement of its students, is substantial.