Ab Nahi to Kab (If Not Now, When)?

Written and edited by Andre Wicks, Founder & CEO | Everyday Principal.

On the wall of a train station in Delhi, painted in weathered red letters that stand out against the soot and dust, three words command attention: ab nahi to kab.

Translated literally, the phrase means if not now, then when? But in practice, it carries a weight that cannot be captured by translation alone. It is less a question than a demand. It strips away the comfort of postponement. It leaves no room for later.

History has been moved forward by such phrases. They have appeared on protest signs, in speeches that rattled nations, and in conversations between people at the breaking point of patience. They are catalysts — words that remind us that waiting is not neutral. Waiting is a decision, and every decision has consequences.

For leaders in education, ab nahi to kab is a mirror we can no longer avoid. Our schools do not exist in suspended time. Students move through grades regardless of whether we are ready. Teachers stand before classrooms each day, regardless of whether their leaders are equipped to guide them. Communities judge the health of their schools every year, regardless of whether professional learning systems are in place.

The uncomfortable truth is this: the future of schools is being written in the present tense. Delay does not hold the line; it erodes it. That is why urgency is not optional for leaders. It is the ground we stand on.

The Significance of that Phrase

Every culture has its own variations of ab nahi to kab. In the United States, civil rights leaders asked, “If not us, who? If not now, when?” In South Africa, leaders of the anti-apartheid struggle rallied communities with the words, “Now is the time.” In moments of historic consequence, language collapses the distance between what must be done and when it must be done.

The reason these phrases resonate across time and geography is simple: humans are skilled at postponement. We tell ourselves that action will come once the budget stabilizes, once the board approves, once the next initiative cycle is complete. But the hidden cost of deferral is that the problem grows in the shadows. By the time the “right time” arrives, the damage is already done. For school leaders, this pattern is dangerously common. Consider the superintendent who believes principal professional learning can wait until next year’s funding round. Or the principal who puts off redesigning feedback systems until state test results come in. These decisions may appear cautious or strategic, but they are, in truth, decisions to allow erosion. Teachers lose clarity, students lose momentum, and schools lose trust while leaders wait.

Leadership, then, is not a promise about the future. It is a discipline of the present. Every conversation, every calendar priority, every piece of feedback is a declaration of what leaders value now. The question is whether those values create progress or permit drift.

Leadership in the Present Tense

Research confirms what practitioners feel in their bones: the principalship is decisive for schools. John Hattie’s meta-analyses (2015) revealed that teachers are the strongest in-school factor for student achievement. But teachers themselves are profoundly shaped by leadership. Principals determine whether professional learning is coherent or fragmented, whether feedback is precise or perfunctory, and whether school culture is supportive or corrosive. Kenneth Leithwood and Karen Seashore Louis (2012) made the point unmistakable: “To date we have not found a single case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership.” Leadership, they concluded, accounts for roughly a quarter of a school’s impact on student outcomes—second only to classroom instruction itself.

What is often missed in interpreting this research is the immediacy of leadership’s influence. It is tempting to imagine leadership impact as something realized years later. But the truth is that leadership operates in the present tense.

• A teacher who receives clear, actionable feedback today is more effective in tomorrow’s lesson.

• A principal who structures collaborative planning today creates stronger instruction the following week.

• A leader who clarifies priorities this month prevents staff from scattering their energy across competing initiatives.

The effects are cumulative, but they begin immediately. Every day of leadership either compounds momentum or compounds loss. This is why ab nahi to kab must shape leadership practice. Waiting to act is not holding ground. It is forfeiting it.

The Cost of Delay

The costs of delay are not theoretical. They appear in budgets, in classrooms, and in communities.

Fiscal Costs

Principal turnover is among the most expensive forms of attrition a district can face. The School Leaders Network (2014) estimated that replacing a principal costs tens of thousands of dollars in direct expenditures—recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and interim coverage. But the true costs extend far beyond. Teacher turnover often follows principal turnover, compounding expenses and destabilizing schools. Research from RAND (Grissom et al., 2021) confirms that principal attrition is highest in schools serving historically marginalized communities, meaning that the financial and human costs of delay fall disproportionately where stability is most needed.

Districts that defer investment in leadership development often believe they are conserving resources. In reality, they are committing themselves to the far higher costs of churn. What could have been a proactive investment in sustainable leadership growth becomes a reactive cycle of replacing leaders and repairing damage.

Human Costs

Behind every fiscal line item are human stories. When principal development is delayed, teachers lose access to the coaching that sharpens their practice. Burnout rises. Frustration grows. A teacher who feels unseen or unsupported begins to update their résumé. Students, in turn, experience inconsistent instruction. Engagement falls. Trust frays.

The Learning Policy Institute (2017) documented that sustained, role-specific professional learning for principals is directly tied to teacher retention and student achievement. Principals who are equipped to lead instruction, build culture, and manage systems hold teachers in the profession. Principals who are left unsupported unintentionally drive teachers away. Delay, then, is not neutral. It is a choice to increase attrition.

Cultural Costs

Culture may be the most fragile casualty of delay. Culture is built in the daily rhythms of leadership. A principal who provides feedback promptly and specifically communicates that growth matters. A leader who visits classrooms consistently signals that teaching and learning are priorities. Conversely, when leaders postpone these practices, culture drifts. Meetings become perfunctory, collaboration loses energy, and cynicism seeps in.

And once cynicism takes root, it is notoriously difficult to dislodge. Districts that wait to address leadership development often find themselves trying to rebuild trust that could have been preserved with timely investment.

The combined effect of fiscal, human, and cultural costs is sobering. Delay is not a pause button. It is a multiplier of problems.

Systems vs. Good Intentions

One of the most persistent myths in education is that strong leadership depends on extraordinary individuals. Charismatic principals, passionate superintendents, tireless assistant principals—these images dominate narratives of school improvement. But while good intentions and personal qualities matter, they are insufficient.

Charisma does not scale. Passion does not sustain. Systems do.

The Wallace Foundation’s 2021 synthesis emphasized this point: effective principals succeed because they build coherent systems. Systems for teacher professional learning. Systems for data use and feedback. Systems for culture-building rituals. In schools where systems exist, growth continues even when leaders change. In schools without systems, improvement collapses when a leader departs. This truth aligns with The Ceiling Principle. Leaders have a natural ceiling of influence—an upper limit on the change they can create through personal presence alone. That ceiling rises as leaders refine their skills, but it is only removed when leaders create systems that endure without them. When systems are in place, leadership becomes infinite; it continues to influence even in the leader’s absence.

For districts, the question is clear: will you rely on good intentions, or will you build systems? Ab nahi to kab?

Inform. Influence. Inspire.

At Everyday Principal, our mission rests on three imperatives: inform, influence, inspire. These are not decorative words. They are the part of the infrastructure for sustainable leadership.

Inform

Urgency without evidence becomes recklessness. Leaders must be anchored in research that illuminates both the costs of delay and the benefits of timely investment. Informing means drawing from the Wallace Foundation’s evidence that principals shape 25% of student outcomes. It means acknowledging RAND’s findings on attrition and inequity. It means internalizing Hattie’s data on teacher impact and recognizing that principals are the greatest multiplier of teacher effectiveness. Information transforms urgency from panic into purpose.

Influence

Leadership is not authority—it is influence. Influence is what allows principals to shape teacher practice, strengthen culture, and guide students. But influence is not accidental; it is constructed. It grows from systems that align calendars, conversations, and coaching with a coherent vision of learning. Influence is durable when leaders stop improvising and start designing.

Inspire

Information and influence, though essential, are not sufficient. Schools do not thrive on efficiency alone. They thrive on inspiration—leaders who remind communities that teaching is noble work, that growth is possible, that urgency is an act of hope rather than fear. To inspire is to infuse ab nahi to kab with meaning. It is to show teachers and students that action today is not a burden but a gift to tomorrow.

Inform. Influence. Inspire. These are not sequential steps. They are simultaneous demands. Together, they form the discipline of leadership that acts now rather than later.

The Superintendent’s Choice

Superintendents, in particular, face the mirror of ab nahi to kab. Their decisions determine whether leadership development is treated as a system or as an afterthought.

The Wallace Foundation (2021) documented that districts with intentional leadership pipelines—structures that recruit, train, and support principals continuously—outperform those that rely on sporadic workshops or one-off programs. Students achieve more. Teachers stay longer. Communities trust deeper. Conversely, districts that delay or underfund leadership pipelines spend years trapped in cycles of turnover and underperformance.

The superintendent’s dilemma is that there will never be a perfect moment. Budgets will always be strained. Political climates will always be unsettled. Competing initiatives will always clamor for attention. Waiting for ideal conditions is waiting forever.

The true choice is not between now and later. It is between action and decline.

Closing Reflection

The words on that Delhi wall are more than a phrase. They are a challenge that echoes across continents and contexts: ab nahi to kab?

For principals, it means refusing to postpone the feedback that could change tomorrow’s lesson. For superintendents, it means refusing to delay the systems that could stabilize leadership for a decade. For communities, it means demanding urgency from those entrusted with children’s futures.

Every leader has a ceiling of impact. That ceiling rises or falls not in some distant future, but in the immediacy of today’s choices. Waiting is not holding ground. It is losing it. The students in our classrooms cannot wait. The teachers who depend on leadership cannot wait. The communities that trust us cannot wait.

So the question, painted in red and impossible to ignore, comes once again:

Ab nahi to kab? If not now, then when?

References

• Grissom, J. A., Egalite, A. J., & Lindsay, C. A. (2021). How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research. RAND Corporation.

• Hattie, J. (2015). The applicability of visible learning to higher education. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1(1), 79–91.

• Leithwood, K., & Louis, K. S. (2012). Linking Leadership to Student Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Learning Policy Institute. (2017). The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning.

• School Leaders Network. (2014). Churn: The High Cost of Principal Turnover.

• Wallace Foundation. (2021). How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research.