Why the Principalship Is the Greatest Job in Education

Written and Edited by Al Ias, Everyday Principal.

Every fall, across the United States, principals walk into buildings buzzing with hope. The newly lettered bulletin boards line the hallways, and the palpable energy of a new school year fills the air. Students return with sharpened pencils and sharpened nerves. Teachers arrive with plans and possibilities. Families entrust their most treasured possession to the schoolhouse. At the center of all this anticipation stands the principal.

For some, the principalship is seen as an exhausting, impossible role—endless meetings, budget constraints, late-night emails. And yet for those who have lived it, the truth is undeniable: the principalship is the greatest job in education. Not because it is easy, but because it is profoundly consequential, identity-forming, and system-shaping. It is the one seat that allows a leader to translate vision into daily experience for children and adults—at scale, in real time.

The Power of Proximity

One of the most compelling reasons the principalship is the greatest job in education is its unique position of proximity. Teachers profoundly influence their students. Superintendents set district direction and policy. But only principals live at the intersection of both—close enough to directly touch the daily lives of children, while also positioned to shape the entire adult culture of a school. Principals are near enough to hear a kindergartener’s excitement about reading her first book and, in the same afternoon, to lead professional dialogue that raises the instructional expectations of an entire staff.

This proximity is more than symbolic. It is leverage. A principal’s decisions affect students’ immediate experiences while simultaneously shaping the systems that endure long after dismissal bells. The Wallace Foundation’s large-scale synthesis of two decades of research concluded that principals have “substantial effects on student achievement, second only to teachers” (Grissom, Egalite, & Lindsay, 2021, p. 5). What makes this finding even more striking is that principals rarely teach students directly. Their impact comes through the teachers they support, the culture they construct, and the conditions they design. Proximity means that every improvement in a principal’s practice ripples outward exponentially.

Proximity also magnifies accountability. Teachers and students can see and feel the principal’s presence. A leader who consistently shows up in hallways, classrooms, lunchrooms, and community spaces communicates a clear message: I am in this work with you. Conversely, a principal who remains behind closed doors unintentionally signals detachment. In education, presence is not just visibility; it is influence.

Vignette — An Elementary School Turnaround

When Principal James took over a struggling elementary school in Oklahoma, the district’s data told a bleak story: high absenteeism, low reading proficiency, and declining enrollment. The temptation was to spend the first year focused on compliance—restructuring programs, rewriting improvement plans, and chasing benchmarks. Instead, James decided to lean into proximity.

He began each day on the front steps, greeting every student by name as buses unloaded. He carried a small notepad where he jotted quick observations about student moods and family concerns. By 9:00 a.m., he moved into classrooms—not with a checklist, but with questions: “What are students learning today?” “How do you know they’re getting it?” He ate lunch weekly with a rotating group of students, asking them to share what they liked most about school and what frustrated them.

Within weeks, his presence began to shift perceptions. Teachers started inviting him to see lessons they were proud of, not just those they were nervous about. Families noted in surveys that they felt “seen” by leadership. Students began competing to share their writing or math strategies with him at dismissal. A year later, reading scores had inched up, attendance had stabilized, and teacher turnover had dropped. The district improvement plan hadn’t changed dramatically, but the culture had. Proximity had done its work: people knew their leader was close, invested, and listening.

Why Proximity Matters So Deeply

The principal’s proximity to students, teachers, and families means they can act as a translator between levels of the system. They understand central office expectations but filter them through the realities of classrooms. They hear the hopes and frustrations of parents and balance them against state accountability demands. They see student needs not as statistics but as faces, and they can help teachers connect pedagogy to those human realities.

Leithwood and colleagues (2004) argued that leadership’s impact is largely indirect but significant: principals influence student achievement by shaping teacher motivation, professional learning, and working conditions. Proximity is the mechanism that makes that indirect impact possible. Because principals are close, they can notice patterns, listen to stories, and intervene in ways that connect system goals with human experience.

The magic of the principalship is that proximity makes influence immediate and exponential. A small shift in how dismissal is handled reduces stress for families and staff. A change in how walkthroughs are conducted builds teacher trust. A daily presence in the lunchroom convinces students that leadership cares about them beyond test scores. These micro-moments compound into macro change. Few other roles in education hold this blend of intimacy and leverage.

The Ceiling Principle in Action

One of the most exciting truths about the principalship is how it demonstrates The Ceiling Principle. Every leader has a ceiling to their direct influence. No matter how talented, charismatic, or dedicated a principal may be, their personal impact cannot stretch infinitely. Alone, they can only teach so many lessons, mentor so many teachers, or intervene in so many student situations. Their time, presence, and energy are finite.

But leadership at its best is not about how much a single person can do. It is about how effectively a leader can create the conditions for others to grow, improve, and thrive when the leader is not present. When principals establish systems—professional learning communities, coaching cycles, shared norms, routines—that keep functioning without their constant direction, the ceiling is lifted. When they build conditions so strong that teachers and students continue to grow in the leader’s absence, the ceiling disappears altogether. That is when leadership becomes infinite.

This concept is supported by leadership research. Leithwood et al. (2004) found that school leaders influence student learning indirectly by shaping teacher motivation and professional capacity. Principals who invest in the growth of their teams multiply their own impact. Similarly, Grissom, Egalite, and Lindsay (2021) argue that principals are second only to teachers in their effect on student achievement precisely because they create environments where teachers improve instruction. A principal’s true measure, then, is not what they accomplish personally but what they enable others to accomplish consistently.

Vignette — A Principal Removing the Ceiling

At Crestview Middle School, Principal Johnson realized that every time he left campus for a district meeting, instructional progress stalled. Walkthroughs went undocumented, feedback cycles slowed, and collaboration felt optional. Teachers joked, “Nothing big happens when you’re gone.”

Rather than doubling down on control, Johnson leaned into the Ceiling Principle. He began by creating a leadership team of department chairs, not to rubber-stamp decisions but to co-lead the work. Together, they developed a shared instructional framework: three non-negotiables visible in every classroom—learning targets posted, success criteria referenced, and exit tickets aligned to objectives.

Next, Johnson designed a peer observation protocol. Teachers visited each other’s classrooms weekly, scripting evidence and debriefing in short cycles. Initially, he facilitated every meeting. But by midyear, department chairs rotated the facilitation, using a shared agenda template and keeping commitments in a digital tracker.

The real test came in March, when Johnson was called to a weeklong training. To his surprise, the peer observations continued uninterrupted, and the leadership team ran debriefs with fidelity. Teachers reported that the work felt “ours” rather than “his.” When state testing results arrived, Crestview had shown its largest growth in three years—particularly in writing, the very area teachers had been refining in their peer cycles.

Johnson’s absence had no negative effect. In fact, it revealed the strength of the systems he and his team had built. The ceiling of his individual influence had been removed; leadership was no longer dependent on his constant presence.

Why the Ceiling Principle Makes the Job Great

The Ceiling Principle reframes how principals think about their role. Instead of carrying the crushing weight of being the “hero leader” who must fix every problem, principals can see themselves as system designers—leaders who create conditions that outlast them. This shift is liberating. It means the goal is not to be everywhere at once, but to design structures that make excellence repeatable.

It also redefines success. A principal who micromanages every detail may feel indispensable, but their school collapses when they are absent. A principal who develops shared leadership, invests in teacher capacity, and builds collaborative systems may feel less in control day to day—but their school thrives long after they leave. That is the essence of infinite leadership. The principalship is the greatest job in education in part because it allows leaders to experience this paradox: the more you empower others, the greater and more lasting your impact becomes. Few careers offer the chance to design influence that grows larger in your absence.

Implications for New School Years

At the beginning of each year, principals should ask themselves: What is the ceiling on my current influence, and how can I remove it? The answer might be as simple as creating a clear set of look-fors that all teachers co-own, or as complex as building a multi-year coaching cycle. Either way, the work is not about personal heroics—it is about leadership that multiplies. When principals embrace the Ceiling Principle, they step into the joy of seeing growth continue even when they step out of the room. And that is when the role becomes not just important, but infinite.

The Infinite Game of the Principalship

Sinek (2019) distinguishes between finite games—where the goal is to win—and infinite games—where the goal is to keep playing, to endure, and to grow. The principalship is the ultimate infinite game. Test scores matter; budgets and audits matter. But the truest scorecard of a principal is whether the school thrives in their absence. A superintendent once told me, “The campuses I worry least about are the ones where the principal could take a month off and the place would still hum.” That is not a sign of dispensability; it is a sign of design.

This mindset reframes daily decisions. Instead of asking, “Did we win this week?” principals ask, “What system did we strengthen that will still be here five years from now?” It changes how leaders approach discipline (from rules to relationships), professional learning (from events to routines), and community engagement (from announcements to partnerships). It also guards against burnout by tethering today’s hard work to tomorrow’s durable gains.

Redefining Success

The infinite game lens radically reframes what it means to be effective. Under a finite game mentality, success looks like short-term wins: higher test scores, fewer discipline referrals, improved attendance. These outcomes are important, but they are inherently fragile. They can evaporate as quickly as they appear if they are not anchored in deeper systems.

By contrast, in an infinite mindset, the question is not “Did we win?” but “Are we building something that lasts?” A principal leading with this orientation focuses less on chasing short-term fixes and more on embedding structures that outlive their tenure. They design professional learning routines that continue year after year, they codify cultural rituals that make belonging repeatable, and they cultivate leadership capacity in others so that the school does not rely on a single person to hold it together.

Vignette — A Principal Playing the Infinite Game

At Lincoln High School, Principal Hernandez faced pressure from the district to increase graduation rates within two years. The temptation was to push for credit recovery programs and last-minute interventions for struggling seniors. These strategies might have boosted numbers quickly, but Hernandez worried they would mask deeper issues—low ninth-grade success rates, inconsistent instructional expectations, and fragile student engagement.

Instead of chasing the quick win, Hernandez chose to play the infinite game. She and her team launched a Ninth Grade Academy, with carefully selected teachers, smaller class sizes, and a dedicated counselor. They introduced weekly advisory periods across the school, where teachers built relationships with small groups of students and tracked their progress. Hernandez also invested in teacher leadership, training a cohort of department chairs in coaching and peer observation practices.

The first year, graduation rates barely moved, and the district questioned her approach. But by the third year, ninth-grade course failures had dropped by 40%, chronic absenteeism had decreased, and graduation rates began climbing steadily—not because of temporary patches but because the system itself had been redesigned. When Hernandez eventually transitioned to a district role, the structures remained. The Ninth Grade Academy continued, advisory periods became a hallmark of the school, and teacher-led coaching was institutionalized. Lincoln High was thriving, not because of Hernandez’s daily presence, but because she had built an infinite system.

This vignette illustrates a critical truth: playing the infinite game sometimes requires the courage to resist short-term optics in favor of long-term endurance. It is slower, harder, and less glamorous—but it is also the essence of great leadership.

The infinite game perspective makes the principalship not only sustainable but deeply meaningful. Principals who adopt this mindset free themselves from the crushing weight of thinking everything depends on them in the moment. Instead, they see themselves as part of a larger story. Their role is to ensure that the school will keep improving long after they are gone.

This is why the principalship is the greatest job in education: it is one of the few roles where leaders can design systems whose influence compounds across generations. A student’s first-grade reading group today leads to a stronger ninth-grade academy tomorrow, which leads to higher graduation rates years later, which leads to more opportunities in adulthood. The principal may never see the full arc, but they will have authored part of a story that outlives them.

Infinite Mindset as Leadership Legacy

Ultimately, the infinite game is about legacy, not ego. Principals who embrace this mindset are remembered not for the years they were physically present but for the systems they left behind. Their influence becomes invisible yet indelible. The best compliment a departing principal can receive is not “We will miss you terribly,” but “We will be fine, because of what you built.”

In this way, the infinite game transforms the principalship from a survival job into a generational calling. It ensures that the work is not about winning this year’s contest, but about sustaining a future where children, teachers, and communities thrive.

A Job of Identity and Meaning

More than any other role in education, the principalship demands authenticity. Teachers and students sense immediately whether a leader’s identity is grounded and genuine. Unlike in other professions, where image can sometimes substitute for substance, schools are communities that quickly reveal whether a leader is real. Children are unfiltered truth-tellers; teachers are astute readers of character. A principal who postures or pretends will be found out quickly.

When principals lead from who they truly are—not from a compliance checklist—schools gain coherence. Michael Fullan (2014) calls this “coherence making”: aligning culture, instruction, and relationships around shared meaning and purpose. Principals are the coherence-makers-in-chief. When their actions reflect their authentic selves, schools experience a kind of stability and clarity that no policy mandate can enforce.

Identity is not a side matter; it is central. A leader who operates from fear creates compliance. A leader who operates from purpose creates commitment. Research on authentic leadership echoes this: leaders who enact authenticity foster trust, resilience, and higher performance (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). In schools, the effects are visible and human. A principal can witness a student mastering a skill once thought impossible, a teacher experimenting with a new strategy, a community rallying around shared values. Few professions allow leaders to see, in real time, the fruits of their character.

Identity and Trust

Trust is the currency of schools, and identity is the source of trust. Bryk and Schneider’s (2002) research on relational trust demonstrated that schools with high levels of trust among teachers, parents, and principals were far more likely to show gains in student achievement. What built that trust? Not heroic acts or quick fixes, but day-to-day demonstrations of respect, integrity, and personal regard. Principals cannot outsource these qualities. They flow directly from identity.

A leader who values transparency builds systems of communication where staff feel included. A leader who values equity creates structures where every child is seen and supported. A leader who values learning admits mistakes and models continuous improvement. These choices are not technical adjustments; they are expressions of identity. Teachers and students feel the difference between a leader who is acting out of alignment and one who is leading from their center.

Vignette — Culture by Design, Not by Accident

When Dr. Patel took over a mid-sized middle school, office referrals peaked every Monday and Friday, team meetings were perfunctory, and the staff lounge had become a venting chamber. Rather than launching a behavior initiative, she convened a voluntary after-school dialogue called “Why We Came,” where educators shared the moment they chose this profession. She listened for the verbs—believe, invest, notice, design—and put them on chart paper.

Next, she redesigned the master schedule to carve out a protected 40-minute block every Wednesday for grade-level collaboration. The teams used a simple protocol: one student work sample, one common formative assessment question, and one “look for” to observe in each other’s classrooms that week. The protocol fit on a half-sheet. Facilitation rotated; Dr. Patel attended only to remove barriers. Fridays became “celebration sweeps,” where she and two counselors visited rooms to capture and share tiny wins—one specific paragraph from a student, one moment of peer feedback at high rigor, one quiet student’s brave question.

Within six weeks, Monday referrals dropped by half. Teachers started asking for walkthrough time and bringing their own protocols. Lounge chatter shifted from problems to patterns. By winter, teams had drafted three school-wide “look fors”—communicated learning targets, success criteria visible at the point of use, and an exit prompt that fed the next day’s plan—and aligned assessments accordingly. Culture didn’t change because of a poster or an assembly. It changed because the principal created the conditions—norms, time, tools—where adults practiced coherence and saw their craft improving.

Leadership research is clear: leadership’s primary contribution to learning runs through its influence on staff motivation, professional learning, and working conditions (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004). Dr. Patel moved those levers, and the school moved with her.

The Multiplying Effect of Identity

Identity does more than establish trust or shape culture—it multiplies. When a principal models authenticity, others feel permission to do the same. Teachers are more willing to admit vulnerability and seek feedback. Students are more willing to take risks and persist through failure. Parents are more willing to partner when they sense sincerity. This multiplying effect turns identity into a force that cascades across the entire ecosystem.

At the start of each year, principals would do well to ask not just what will I do? but who will I be? Strategy matters. Systems matter. But who the leader is—how they show up, what they embody, and what they represent—sets the tone for everything else.

Identity and Flow

Identity also connects to the principal’s ability to experience flow. When leaders align their work with their deepest values, they are more likely to enter states of absorption and joy. A principal who thrives on building relationships will find flow during classroom walkthroughs and student celebrations. A principal who identifies as a learner will find flow while facilitating professional learning. These moments of alignment are not accidental—they arise when leaders’ identities and daily practices reinforce each other. And when principals operate from flow, they broadcast energy that others absorb.

Flow and the Joy of Leadership

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) described flow as the state of peak human performance when challenge and skill are perfectly matched. Principals know this state well. Guiding a breakthrough coaching conversation, orchestrating a schoolwide event, troubleshooting a complicated schedule—these moments can feel like time dilates, attention sharpens, and purpose hums. When principals operate from flow, they often create conditions in which teachers experience flow too. And when teachers experience flow, students are far more likely to experience deep learning. Flow is not self-indulgent; it is catalytic.

For principals, flow emerges not in monotony or ease but at the intersection of high challenge and high skill. Consider the design of a master schedule that balances dozens of competing needs—teachers’ certifications, student course requests, inclusion mandates, and state requirements. To an outsider, it looks like a headache-inducing spreadsheet puzzle. To a principal in flow, it becomes a game of design, a deeply engaging act of problem-solving that carries real meaning: when the puzzle locks into place, opportunities open for hundreds of students.

Research on flow underscores why these experiences matter for leaders. Flow states increase intrinsic motivation, creativity, and resilience (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Leaders who regularly access flow are more likely to persist in the face of complexity, recover from setbacks, and model energy for those around them. Daniel Pink (2009) reminds us that adults are most motivated when they experience autonomy, mastery, and purpose—all three are present in moments of flow.

Flow as Contagious Energy

Flow is not just a personal gift to leaders; it is contagious. When principals operate from flow, they radiate focus and calm intensity that signals to teachers: this is meaningful work, and we are capable of meeting the challenge. A faculty that sees its leader thriving under pressure, not by cutting corners but by leaning into complexity, becomes more willing to do the same.

For example, a principal leading a staff-wide instructional focus on “making student thinking visible” may spend hours crafting a professional learning sequence that scaffolds teacher practice over several months. The process requires balancing research evidence, local data, and teacher readiness levels. To a disengaged leader, this planning would feel burdensome. To a principal in flow, the work feels generative and creative—the design itself is energizing. Teachers sense that energy when it is shared, and it catalyzes their own willingness to experiment and refine.

Vignette — A high school senior’s last first day

At Northview High, a comprehensive school serving a diverse, working-class community, the new principal, Mr. Thompson, inherited a schedule that pulled struggling seniors out of electives to repeat failed courses in computer labs. On his first walkthrough, he met Laila, a senior who needed one English credit to graduate. She sat in “credit recovery,” head down, earbuds in. When he asked what she wanted after graduation, she whispered, “I used to want to study design.”

That evening he called the CTE director, the English chair, and the counseling team. Within two weeks, Laila was enrolled in a project-based Graphic Design capstone that embedded the missing ELA standards into client briefs, reflective writing, and a portfolio defense. The principal secured two community partners—a local print shop and a nonprofit—to serve as authentic audiences. He also formed a small “exceptions committee” that met weekly to creatively align graduation requirements with meaningful learning for students close to the finish line.

By spring, Laila had completed her credit, built a portfolio, and presented to a panel that included her grandmother and the print shop owner. She walked across the stage in June. But the bigger story is what happened the following year: the “exceptions committee” became a Pathways Council with written criteria, counselor playbooks, and quarterly data reviews. Credit-recovery sections shrank; capstones expanded. Local employers began attending showcases. One student’s last first day became the seed of a durable system that now carries students like Laila toward futures they can see and name. That is the principalship at its best: a single human story converted into a replicable structure.

Student and Teacher Flow

The principal’s ability to experience and foster flow ripples outward. Teachers in flow are more likely to design lessons where students can experience it too—deep engagement, challenge matched with support, and learning that feels purposeful. John Hattie’s (2009) meta-analysis showed that classroom clarity, formative feedback, and challenging goals have some of the highest effect sizes on achievement; each of these is also a precondition for student flow. Principals who build systems that support these practices are, in essence, designing for flow at scale.

Imagine a school where collaborative teacher teams regularly analyze student work, refine success criteria, and design tasks that stretch thinking. Those teams are operating close to flow because the work is challenging, collective, and immediately applicable. The principal who protected time for that collaboration, modeled protocols, and removed bureaucratic barriers is indirectly creating flow conditions for both teachers and students.

Flow as Leadership Renewal

Finally, flow provides leaders with renewal in a role that can otherwise feel depleting. The principalship is demanding—long hours, constant interruptions, emotional labor. Without moments of joy and absorption, burnout looms. But principals who intentionally structure opportunities to enter flow—a weekly coaching cycle with a teacher, designing a new student leadership program, facilitating a community visioning session—recharge through the very work that could otherwise exhaust them.

Flow is not escapism. It is a leadership practice. It allows principals to sustain themselves while simultaneously modeling for their schools what it looks like to find deep meaning and joy in challenging, purposeful work. That is why flow belongs not only in psychology texts but in the lived vocabulary of every school leader.

Why the Hard Parts are the Best Parts

Critics point to the challenges of the role: budget cuts, political crosswinds, the constant balancing act from morning bus duty to evening concerts. These are real. They are also the very things that make the job consequential. To lead through adversity is to model resilience. To navigate competing interests is to practice diplomacy. To make tough calls is to demonstrate courage. Each leadership muscle—resilience, diplomacy, courage—transfers to students and staff. RAND (2022) documents how effective leadership correlates with stronger teacher satisfaction and lower turnover; that is not incidental. Principals who do the hard parts well create environments where people can do their best work.

In practice, the “hard parts” become the curriculum of leadership. A difficult community meeting becomes a master class in listening for values beneath positions. A budget shortfall becomes an exercise in aligning resources with the school’s true north. A safety incident becomes an opportunity to demonstrate transparency and care. The principalship’s difficulties are not detours from the work; they are the work—and they are deeply meaningful when approached with craft and heart.

What Makes this the Greatest Job—Right Now

If proximity, identity, systems, and the infinite game explain why the principalship is unparalleled, the start of the school year shows how that greatness is enacted in real time. In August and September, principals build belonging for sixth graders terrified of middle school, help brand-new teachers transform nerves into purpose, and re-establish rituals that make the school feel like home. They set the year’s instructional focus with practical clarity: “We will design tasks that make thinking visible; we will use exit prompts to inform tomorrow’s plans; we will confer with students weekly.” Those commitments sound simple. They are. They are also the difference between a building that drifts and a building that learns.

A new year also invites principals to recommit to their own learning. Hattie’s (2009) synthesis reminds us that teacher clarity, formative evaluation, and collective efficacy are among the highest-impact influences on achievement; principals multiply those influences when they design schedules, norms, and feedback systems that make them routine. Adult learning research likewise cautions that one-off workshops seldom change practice; sustained, job-embedded professional learning aligned to real problems of practice is far more effective (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017; Knowles, Holton, & Swanson, 2015). When principals structure that kind of learning for adults, students benefit in ways that compound throughout the year.

Reflection, Practice, and a Simple Beginning

For principals stepping into this year, three quiet practices can anchor the work without adding to the weight.

Begin each day with a five-minute presence sweep—two classrooms, one hallway, one office. Not to catch mistakes, but to send a message: I see you; I’m with you. Capture one thing you learned about the school’s current reality. Presence is the soil in which trust grows.

Make one system one percent better each week. Tweak the referral flow so teachers get closure on outcomes. Add a single high-leverage “look for” to your walkthrough tool and use it for a month. Replace a meeting’s information dump with a short protocol that surfaces thinking. Systems compound; tiny improvements, repeated, become culture.

Protect one flow activity for yourself—a weekly coaching block, a design session with student leaders, a Friday gratitude walk where you hand-write three notes before you leave. Leaders who experience flow are more likely to create it for others. Your joy is not an indulgence; it is a resource for the whole school.

A Closing Word to Principals

As the first bells ring, buses pull up, and classrooms come alive, pause and remember: this is the greatest job in education. You are the architect of culture, the amplifier of teaching, the steward of children’s dreams. Your influence is measured not only in today’s smiles and solved problems but in the systems that will still bless students years from now. The hours are long because the stakes are high; the work is hard because it is worthy.

If you want a quick test of whether the job is great, stand in a doorway tomorrow morning and watch the faces of students as they cross the threshold. There is no other role that allows a leader to shape that moment for so many—and to build the conditions that make those moments repeatable. That is why principals keep showing up. That is why the principalship endures as a calling. And that is why, especially at the start of a new school year, it is the greatest job in education.

References

Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 16(3), 315–338.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.

Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective professional development. Learning Policy Institute.

Fullan, M. (2014). The principal: Three keys to maximizing impact. Jossey-Bass.

Grissom, J. A., Egalite, A. J., & Lindsay, C. A. (2021). How principals affect students and schools: A systematic synthesis of two decades of research. The Wallace Foundation.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Routledge.

Knowles, M. S., Holton, E. F. III, & Swanson, R. A. (2015). The adult learner (8th ed.). Routledge.

Leithwood, K., Louis, K. S., Anderson, S., & Wahlstrom, K. (2004). How leadership influences student learning. The Wallace Foundation.

RAND Corporation. (2022). Principal turnover: Upended pipelines, uncertain futures. RAND.Sinek, S. (2019). The infinite game. Portfolio.