What Being a Successful Principal Really Means:

This paper presents an international perspective on successful principals. Data from the International Successful School Principals’ Project, now in its sixth year and presently in eight nations and over sixty schools, along with a critical review of the international literature on successful principals provide the basis for a discussion of both similarities and dissimilarities across nations. A strong values orientation relating to clear instrumental and broad moral purposes, along with other similar attributes, qualities, and strategies, recur as common denominators. Five combinations of these are identified. However, the relative emphases which are placed upon their use varies according to the principals’ or their schools’ phase of development and the demands of the broader policy and demographic contexts.