Successful School Principalship: A Meta-Synthesis of 20 Years of International Case Studies

Abstract

This meta-synthesis crosses international borders by analyzing successful principalship across nine countries. With careful, detailed, systematic, and analytic synthesis, it critically explores research-informed understandings of successful principal leadership over the last 20 years. The paper is an interim report of reviews of the 85 articles and 23 chapters produced by the International Successful School Principal Project (ISSPP), the largest, longest-running international research project in this field. In that project, success is defined as the principal’s ability to grow and sustain students’ academic, personal, and social developments and achievements over time. The results add to existing knowledge of how successful school principals achieve success by examining high-quality, published case study evidence from Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Spain, the UK, and the US. Results suggest common sets of core values, qualities, and practices among school principals, regardless of national contexts, conditions, or cultures. Because the research design is multi-perspective and multi-layered, the case studies also show significant, context-informed differences in timing, pace, and extent of application of improvement strategies. Thus, the findings of this synthesis paint a thorough and cohesive picture of who successful principals are and what they do over time at the global level to achieve success, as they navigate values-led school success in different contexts and improvement phases within complex internal and external ecological chrono-, macro-, exo-, meso-, and microsystems.

1. Introduction

This paper presents a review of the publications from the ISSPP from nine countries: Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Spain, the UK, and the US. This study adds to our knowledge of how school leadership improves school and student development over time by examining high-quality case study evidence from the largest, longest-running international research project in this field. School principalship is pivotal to the success of almost any significant change in schools. Whilst school leadership’s contribution is second only to classroom instruction [1,2,3], it is the principal’s influence on educational purposes, school structures, cultures, and practices that directly and indirectly influences all school processes. Therefore, it is crucial to study the nature and drivers of principal leadership practices in different contexts and cultures from a broader and deeper perspective than has been the case in previous research on school effectiveness and improvement [4]. Whilst the best of such research has been, and remains, informative in describing the actions necessary for principals to engage in and successfully sustain school improvement (the “what” of leadership), its usefulness in understanding the dynamics of the complex relationship and interactions between principalship and the contexts in which principals’ work is limited to “snapshots in time”, generalized, “adjectival” models that do not always seem to match the realities of leading in times of policy change, and focus upon one aspect, e.g., the effects of “new public management” and “performativity”, without looking at how successful principals navigate the many internal and external challenges, or self-reported single-lens narratives. Successful principalship in this study encompasses the above, providing a holistic, moving rather than static account within a coherent conceptualization located in complexity theory as expressed through ecological human systems theory. This approach is therefore not a linear “add-on” of existing leadership frameworks such as transformational, instructional, or integrated leadership models, but rather a systematic review that unveils complexity in principalship to achieve success. Here, “success” is defined as the principal’s ability to grow and sustain successful school development and students’ academic, personal, and social achievements over time.

To explore on a large scale and understand better how principals achieve and sustain success in different policy and socioeconomic contexts in the face of increasingly diverse and changing student populations over time, since 2001 [5], members of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP) have been actively conducting multi-perspective, multi-layered case studies on the cultures, contexts, and work of successful principals of primary and secondary schools in wide geographic and economic contexts. This meta-synthesis inquired into the values, qualities, practices and contexts of successful principalship. Specifically, this study aimed to answer the following three questions:

• RQ1: How was success defined?

• RQ2: What were the successful principalship practices (SPPs) across countries?

• RQ3: What are the values and qualities of successful principals in the global school context?

The paper is presented in four sections: Section 2. Background and Perspectives; Section 3. Ecological Human Systems Theory; Section 4. Findings; and Section 5. Discussion and Conclusions.

2. Background and Perspectives

The ISSPP project is sharply focused on the “how”, “when”, and “why” of successful principalship. Instead of “distilling” effective leadership practices into generalized “adjectival” frameworks [6], the research takes a multiple perspective, multi-layered, qualitative, case study approach to investigate who successful principals are and what they do to achieve success in different contexts over time. The ISSPP case studies have examined the same problem (successful principalship), employed the same research design, and followed the same collectively agreed-upon protocols. They provide rich and rigorous descriptions of contexts using similar methods, and thus provide the best evidence for a large-scale qualitative meta-analysis that can generate understanding of the broad features of successful principalship. The research has found that success calls for principals’ high level of judgment, wisdom, artistry, anticipatory decision-making, hard work, and resilience as they adapt their knowledge about leading schools successfully in their contexts and to their purposes (e.g., [7]), navigating multiple, interacting layers of the external and internal ecosystem of schools and their contexts (political, cultural, economic, and educational). Our study contributes to this area.

So far, more than 23 cross-case analyses within one country (e.g., [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]) and 63 comparative analyses across mostly two or few selected countries have been published. The cross-country analyses include 16 articles (e.g., [15,16,17,18]), 31 chapters (e.g., [19,20]), 12 books (e.g., [6,12,21,22,23]), and 4 reports (e.g., [24,25,26]). These narrative reviews shed light on successful principalship in individual countries and across the selected countries chosen by their authors or editors. Major findings of the ISSPP research can be found in the four edited project books (e.g., [21,22]). They include, for example, that: (1) success has a broad meaning beyond academic achievement; (2) successful principals share commonalities in successful practices, but enact them differently; (3) context matters—successful principalship is sensitive to but not dependent upon contexts; (4) there are similarities in SPPs for achieving and sustaining success, with early approaches varying; and (5) principals’ values, emotional, intellectual, and interpersonal qualities, and dispositions are powerful forces that enable school success over time. Previous ISSPP reviews have also revealed gaps and areas for future research, for example: (1) dimensions of complexity in leadership practices emerged, with the timing and application of similar leadership practices across borders and within countries; (2) principals share similar leadership values and beliefs, whilst enacting practices differently in different circumstances; and (3) principals’ qualities, backgrounds, and external environments interact and influence their actions, but are understudied. These gaps give rise to questions that are challenging for individual case studies to answer. Scholars have inquired into leadership in urban and rural schools for close to 100 years, yet there have been no systematic reviews that carefully analyze and distinguish successful leadership values, strategies, and practices that characterize these different contexts [27].

Due to the nature of the previous reviews (generally not systematic and typically involving a few or several cases from one or a few countries), it has been difficult to make robust claims and capture the complexity in principalship in relation to contexts and how successful principals navigate the layers of contexts and interact with stakeholders in different layers of the school environments have not been made and revealed. This meta-synthesis attempts to fill these gaps and deepen our understanding in the abovementioned areas by: (1) revealing dimensions of complexity in leadership practices that emerged and similarities across and within contexts (2) uncovering the patterns showing the reciprocal influence between leadership and different layers of context; and (3) describing how the principals’ qualities, backgrounds help to shape their actions and influence leadership process within and across contexts.

3. Methods

This study is a meta-synthesis (qualitative meta-analysis) of ISSPP case studies involving meta-ethnography techniques and a comparative study method. Meta-synthesis systematically synthesizes qualitative evidence, discovers important connections and interactions, identifies patterns in relation to contexts, optimizes findings, and contributes to theory-building. No single study can achieve these results alone, which makes qualitative meta-analysis advantageous considering the intensive and time-consuming nature of qualitative research [28,29,30,31,32]. To gain a deeper understanding of the interactions between successful principalship and policy and social, organizational, and local environments in which principals work, we adopted the meta-ethnography technique [33,34]. Although meta-ethnography was initially used for conducting meta-analysis of ethnographic studies, scholars have shown the applicability of this method to meta-analyzing qualitative studies such as case studies (e.g., [35]), and this method has become one of the few established methods for synthesizing qualitative studies [28]. We also included a comparative study of the ISSPP research across nations and cultures. A cross-culture comparative approach allowed us to see leadership practices in different societies in relation to one another [36], enabling a nuanced understanding of the influence of multicultural phenomena [37].

The procedures used for meta-synthesis in this study adhered to the guidelines suggested by Barnett-Page and Thomas [38] and those particularly set in place for qualitative meta-analysis [39,40,41,42]. We followed the four broad steps these guidelines recommend: (1) search process, study screening and selection, and quality assessment, (2) developing and validating the theoretical framework for review and coding, (3) data extraction and coding, and (4) data analysis and synthesis. Below, we provide brief descriptions of each of these steps. For reporting, we followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) [43,44] and Qualitative Meta-Analysis Journal Article Reporting Standards set by the American Psychological Association [45].

3.1. Search Process, Study Screening and Selection, and Quality Assessment

Four major databases (EBSCO, ERIC-ProQuest, JSTOR, Web of Science), the ISSPP website, Google Scholar, and the nine major tier-one journals in education and administration were thoroughly searched for studies published in English (i.e., articles and chapters) that explicitly stated, “This study is a part of the ISSPP…” and used the ISSPP research protocols, with authors being ISSPP members. Keywords such as “success*”, “leader*”, “principal*”, and “headteacher*” were used for the search. The nine countries of Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the US were chosen for this study because more than five cases were produced from each of these countries. After reading abstracts and method sections, we finally identified 69 publications (56 journal articles and 13 chapters) from nine countries that met the criteria. We compiled the references for these 69 studies and contacted the ISSPP members to check for missing or mistaken references. We did this member checking twice. In doing so, we obtained an additional five studies in total from members. We also excluded several studies that were not conducted by ISSPP members and did not use the agreed-upon research protocols. Through this final member-checking step, we identified 69 studies that met the inclusion criteria. We then assessed the qualities of all the studies using the appraisal standards recommended by Major and Savin-Baden [30]. To qualify for inclusion in this meta-synthesis, qualitative studies had to meet the following criteria.

• Explicitly report their data;

• Include evidence related to at least one of the study’s four research questions;

• Clearly state their aims and objectives;

• Use a research design appropriate to achieving the study’s objectives;

• Provide a clear account of how the data were collected and handled;

• Use appropriate and clearly specified analytic methods;

• Display enough data to support interpretations and conclusions.

All studies were rated medium or high, and thus all 69 studies were included in this review. A detailed search and screening process following PRISMA [43,44] is provided in Figure 1.

The 95 cases reported in these 69 studies were conducted in elementary (32), middle (16), high (9), and a mixed sample of schools (38), with 1 in an academy (grades 11–18). Case school sites were evenly spread over rural (22), suburban (16), or semi-rural (3) and urban (27) areas. In sum, 39 case schools have more than 50% of students on free lunch, are located in poor areas, or with a majority of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) families, 9 schools are at middle SES level, 9 at high SES level, and 5 schools between the middle and high SES levels. In a majority of the case schools (39), principals led schools to success from low academic performance, while in 4 cases, principals sustained success. In all the 95 cases reported in the 69 articles or chapters, about half the principals (42) reported are male and 21 case schools have diverse students (defined in this study as “no ethnicity”—more than 50% of the whole student population in the school). This sample of schools is balanced in terms of principal gender, student composition, locations, and school levels. Please see Table 1 for more details about each study.

3.2. Coding Scheme and Analytical Framework for Review

Successful leadership is a highly interactive and intellectually and emotionally exacting business. Figure 2 shows the framework used to sample knowledge about principal leadership and describe ISSPP publications in the project’s first stage [4]. This framework is not a theory, but rather an analytical tool for getting organized to develop a theory [4]. Informed by this framework, we developed the initial coding scheme and theoretical framework for our meta-synthesis (see Figure 3). This framework describes that school leadership influences students indirectly through teachers (e.g., instruction, collective teacher efficacy), school conditions (e.g., climate culture, collaborative structures), and working with student families (e.g., home expectations) [113]. These mediating variables (Figure 2) significantly contribute to student outcomes (academic achievements, student well-being, and student engagement) and are malleable to school principalship. These mediating variables are called “process outcomes” in this study (see Figure 3) to reflect the influence or change process and the immediate influence of SSL on school culture, teachers, and students. Antecedents give rise to successful principalship practices (SPPs). They can be internal, such as principals’ values and dispositions (referred to as personal qualities in this meta-synthesis), and external, such as within-school factors (e.g., school history, teachers’ qualities), and extra-school factors (e.g., educational policies, political and economic factors, school community characteristics). School leadership influence can also be influenced by moderators (the factors that enhance or hinder school leadership influence, enactment, or effects) (see Figure 2). In this meta-synthesis, we changed the “moderators” to “contextual factors” (see Figure 3) because we were conducting a qualitative meta-analysis, through which we not only identified the contextual influence reported in original case studies (enhanced or hindered but did not determine) but also identified the patterns of principals’ qualities and practices in relation to contexts across case studies.

Previous reviews of ISSPP studies (e.g., [4]) suggested seven “moderators” (e.g., school level, location, student populations). Thus, we initially created seven mother nodes corresponding to these contextual factors. The coding scheme evolved as we coded studies and new findings emerged. About 200 contextual factors were reported in the case studies reviewed; thus, we needed to add many more mother nodes to organize these 200 child nodes.

3.3. Ecological Human Systems Theory

The initial findings suggested the need for a more complex framework to map out and illustrate principalship in different contexts and the interaction between principals and the environment in which they worked to make sense of the contextual influence and present complexity in principalship. In Figure 3, we added an open rectangle with rounded corners, representing the complex, interacting layers of the educational, cultural, political, environmental, and human ecological systems in which principals work [114]. Principals are nested inside these systems in various ways: they are part of a profession, but also part of a school organization that is one small piece of a whole educational system, and this system in turn is part of a country’s historical and present cultural and political heritage [115]. The analysis and interpretation of the data drew on ecological human systems theory as a means of understanding the complex environmental layers that principals internationally navigate in pursuing the success of the schools that they lead.

Applying and adapting Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system, we were able to organize the 200 contextual factors into five layers of the ecological environments that influence principals’ work and that principals navigate and interact with. These comprised microsystems such as school contexts (e.g., location: urban, suburban, rural; border; student population: diverse vs. homogeneous; school level: elementary, secondary), mesosystems such as local contexts (e.g., district, municipality, parents, and immediate communities around the school), exosystems (e.g., indirect environments such as state policies), macrosystems (e.g., national educational policy, social, political, and cultural contexts of a country or region), and chronosystems (e.g., how principalship changes over time). Adapting Bronfenbrenner’s human ecological systems to schools, a principal occupies the center of the five systems. The closest environmental layer to the principal is the microsystem, which represents the direct interaction environment for leaders, primarily referring to within-school contexts such as the characteristics of schools, students, and teachers. Microsystems influence a successful principal much more than the other systems. Characteristics of the school, including student population, socioeconomic status, location, type of school, size, level, fiscal conditions, and history, directly influence the nature, direction, practices, and process of principalship. For example, the most common problems principals in challenging schools in the study faced were student behavior, discipline, and low achievement. In such contexts, principals set high expectations for student achievement, built collaborative structures, collected achievement data to monitor student progress, modeled exemplary behaviors, partnered with parents, and enlisted support and help from wider communities to contribute to students’ well-being [47,63,86,95,96,116]. Principals in high-SES schools provided instructional support and developed teachers’ instructional expertise more tailored to student needs within the school through professional learning, mentoring, and coaching [53]. Successful principals in American schools with racial or ethnic diversity believed every student “can and will learn”. They provided culturally responsive curricula and instruction in school [117], creating a trusting school environment to welcome parents and community members from diverse backgrounds [95]. Leadership to promote equity, inclusion, and social justice was reported in successful cases in Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, and the UK as well. For example, principals integrated students with different social and cultural backgrounds, acted as role models for teaching and learning, and demonstrated strong advocacy for communities and parents who had been marginalized [61,62]. The principals in the Swedish case held the belief that everyone is equal and worked to build equal education [118]. School economic crisis also urged principals’ transformative actions in the cases of US, Cyprus, and New Zealand [47,69,70].

The next layer, the mesosystem, is further from the center and constitutes a network where principals navigate and interact. Parents’ expectations and school community needs and characteristics influenced principals’ actions. Successful principals typically built relationships with immediate external stakeholders, enhanced parental involvement, and recognized and promoted cultural diversity in case schools in Australia, Cyprus, and Sweden [15,48,52,70,118]. Swedish and Norwegian principals worked for inclusive school culture and communicated widely with stakeholders. Principals in Cypriot case schools considered building relationships with the community the most important strategy for achieving success.

The next layer, the exosystem, includes settings and events that indirectly influence the principal and his or her work by impacting elements of the immediate environment (microsystem). Contextual factors in this environment include, for example, central office policies, the superintendent, the municipal community, and relationships with local authorities and the local media. For instance, the superintendent, local educational authorities, and municipal committees can significantly influence principals’ decisions in US, UK, and Sweden case schools. Support from regional partnerships also assisted in school crisis management and development for principals in Australia, the US, and Spain [100,102,106].

The fourth layer from the center is the macrosystem, which refers to the larger cultural and policy contexts within which principals work. It influences, without necessarily determining, all the other systems (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem) by providing a framework that they need to navigate successfully in order to operate. This layer encompasses cultural, economic, political, social, legal, and global contextual factors. National or state educational acts, legislation, educational systems (e.g., centralized/decentralized), and national or regional cultures (e.g., religious schools) are the main influential contexts across the nine countries. For example, principals in the US and UK often focused on improving instruction and fostering data teams to secure internal and external accountability in the accountability policy context, whereas their counterparts in Australia, Cyprus, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain demonstrated strong advocacy for parents who had been marginalized. Principals working in a centralized educational system governance structure were obliged to mediate policies and regulations from the top [63]. They set directions, especially school goals that are more aligned but not necessarily compliant with these external demands, strategically built relationships inside and outside school relationships (e.g., educational authorities), and balanced external demands with school internal needs [62,65,67]. Principals in decentralized educational systems have more opportunities to exercise autonomy than principals in a centralized educational system. For example, principals in Australia, Norway, the UK, and the US had more autonomy in setting personal priorities and hiring staff who were aligned with the school mission or attracted to a more diverse faculty according to school needs (e.g., [100,119]). Another difference in principal practice between these two systems was in restructuring the organization. In a decentralized educational system, principals were able to involve stakeholders, even students, in decision-making processes. They built teacher leadership and sustained collaborative processes [120]. However, in centralized educational systems, such as in Israel, principals built a senior leadership team and distributed leadership to the main middle managers [99,111], adopting a more hierarchical system of relationships in which the principal was at the top of the organization and directed the working style and the school’s priorities [99,100].

The outer layer is the chronosystem, the temporal aspect of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model, which highlights how changes and events over time influence a principal’s work. The principals in this study had been able to navigate the layers of the environment successfully over time by employing combinations of values-led strategies during various “phases” of school improvement. Principalship practices were described as actions in the “beginning stage”, subsequent “changing stage” in some case studies [57,102,117], and the sustaining stage [121].

Informed by this framework and other school leadership research reviews [122,123], we developed the initial coding scheme, comprising five categories of nodes: success, principal’s personal qualities, SPPs, process outcomes (contributors to success, classified into school and teacher variables), and contextual factors (describing the contexts in which the studies were conducted or where principals worked). Mother nodes (primary or overarching category) and child nodes (sub-category or sub-theme that falls under a mother node) were used to guide hierarchical coding structures [68]. For example, 12 sets of SPPs were identified in the previous review of ISSPP publications in its earlier phase [4]. Thus, we initially created 12 mother nodes corresponding to these 12 sets of practices. As we coded studies, this coding framework evolved: initial mother nodes were adjusted (e.g., adding a new mother node of building school resilience) and new child nodes were added (e.g., adapting to change under the mother node of building school resilience). The development and refinement of the coding scheme and theoretical framework for review, as well as coding in this study, were iterative, ongoing processes that informed each other. For example, there was no arrow from principals’ personal qualities to school processes, but we added it as we coded the findings that described how the former directly influenced the latter.

3.4. Data Extraction and Coding

Three coders/authors were trained by the first author and began consistently coding study characteristics and results independently after reaching an interrater Cohen’s kappa coefficient of 0.80 in NVivo. Coding was guided by the comprehensive coding scheme described above, which ultimately took up 116 pages. In the initial coding phase, we used the line-by-line descriptive coding technique common to practical qualitative research to code each study. Three coders/authors coded each study for study characteristics, findings, and authors’ interpretations of findings based on the initial coding scheme, using collaborative NVivo. Additional nodes were developed and added to the original coding scheme as the coders encountered new concepts and ideas that were not included in the initial coding scheme. This initial process classified findings and their original authors’ interpretations into relevant nodes situated in our coding scheme. After completing coding of each study, we organized the studies and findings into different categories based on contexts (e.g., same country, elementary, urban, low SES, diverse student population, etc.) and based on mother and child nodes (e.g., SPPs, principal qualities, success definitions, etc.) to prepare for the next step in our analysis.

3.5. Data Analysis and Synthesis

We first used thematic analysis to identify themes in relation to child and mother nodes, and then in relation to research questions. Then, we used analytic techniques common to meta-ethnographic approaches: reciprocal translation analysis, refutational synthesis, or line-of-argument analysis. Which approach we used was based on the results produced through coding individual articles. As described by Noblit and Hare [33], this phase required determining the relationships among the original studies using one of three main strategies, as follows.

1. Reciprocal translation analysis. The researcher identifies key metaphors, themes, or concepts and translates them in relation to one another (i.e., judges the ability of the concepts of one study to capture concepts from another).

2. Refutational synthesis. The researcher characterizes and attempts to explain contradictions between the separate studies.

3. Line-of-argument analysis. The researcher builds a general interpretation grounded in the findings of the separate studies, identifying through constant comparison themes that are the most powerful in representing the entire dataset.

In the process of translation, we reviewed the findings included on one node or in similar contexts (e.g., elementary schools), identified major concepts, compared and assessed texts, classified similar concepts or themes into a single category, and selected the “most adequate” to describe the phenomenon. For example, González-Falcón et al. [82] used “methodological change” (p. 7) to describe the principal’s leadership strategy in a Spanish school. This term characterized the leadership strategy as ambitious and taking place through a medium-term process. This principal advocated “pedagogical leadership and the need to reform the methodological and evaluation system as a prior step to achieving better results” (p. 7). In a review of New Zealand case studies, Constantinides [124] also used the term “pedagogical leadership”, but in this case, it mainly refers to instructional leadership. Such use of different words describing different aspects of the same term (instructional leadership), as well as the use of different terms to mean similar things, were carefully compared during our comparison and synthesis process.

When we faced different findings in similar contexts, we sought answers in refutational synthesis. For example, we found that the first things that principals did to turn around schools were quite different, even in similar school contexts. Some worked with communities to make schools safe and reduce students’ truancy. Others built caring environments within their schools. We then asked what the commonalities were among such seemingly contrasting findings and realized that regardless of what principals did first, their intentions were the same: to address the most pressing issues in their schools that impeded learning and teaching. Then, by using this commonality at a higher level of abstraction (or underlying factor), we were able to reconcile and explain the apparent contradictory results. Finally, after we analyzed findings in similar contexts and within each node, we grouped findings on a number of nodes into upper-level categories to find commonalities or patterns using line-of-argument analysis. When doing so, we also considered whether there were nuances in those units that could be combined into subcategories to capture differentiation in meanings.

Then, to identify patterns of variations in findings across different contexts, we reorganized the findings into the five layers of the school’s ecological system. Although 200 contextual factors were identified and categorized, most factors were reported in only a few case studies, with 12 factors being cited in more than five studies. Since its inception in 2001, the ISSPP research has focused on seeking to identify and understand how school principals in different cultural and policy contexts and countries achieve and sustain success. Hallinger’s later review also highlighted the importance of contextualizing leadership, emphasizing the need to examine leadership within its context, and the limitations of conventional research methods that focus on average effects, either neglecting the context effects or relegating them to the shadows. He identified five critical contexts for school leadership—institutional, community, social culture, economic, and political—and recommended that the field refine existing research methods and explore new approaches to better understand how effective leadership adapts to various contexts. The authors of ISSPP cases in this special issue have concentrated on reporting the contextual influences on principalship of the 12 most frequently reported contexts populated on the five layers of the ecological human systems (see Table 2 for the contextual factors).

Rather than viewing contextual influences linearly, as much existing research does, they investigated the dynamic, interactive, and organic process through which successful principals operated and responded within the interconnected, nested, and mutually influencing layered environments, identified across the ecology of chrono-, macro-, exo-, meso-, and microsystems. This was possible because the ISSPP studies, conducted over 20 years, included contexts and case studies from various countries, allowing us to synthesize and present comprehensive findings on this challenge to understand leadership and its interactions with all stakeholders in and across different, connected, and layered school settings.

Finally, we combined findings from similar and different contexts in relation to the research questions and developed an integrated theory by merging concepts into larger units that collectively depicted the “landscape” and generated hypothesized theories. These search, coding, and analysis procedures ensured the credibility and trustworthiness of the meta-synthesis.

4. Findings

4.1. How Success Was Defined (RQ1)

The authors of the school studies used six common categories of indicators to define success. These were student academic, personal, and social outcomes; school learning environment and disciplinary climate; instructional (teaching and learning) capacity; parent and community support; school reputation and improvement; and school physical appearance and resources. However, in terms of how success was defined, these indicated (i) a broad rather than narrow view of educational purposes that included but transcended what other research has identified as the compliance required by the policy pressures of “results-driven”, “performative” government agendas; (ii) that the most used success indicators of principals’ work were not applied singly, but in combinations (for example, students’ academic achievement indicators, school disciplinary climate, and teaching and learning culture (e.g., [50,95,96,98,100,101,103,106]) (see Table 3 for more information); and iii) that whilst the indicators themselves applied to all cases, the relative emphasis among them differed according to the principal’s identification of and responses to needs in different situations and different phases of their schools’ improvement. For example, Australian and American principals reported the use of all or almost all categories of success indicators to assess success holistically, while Norwegian and Swedish researchers noted a focus on a democratic learning environment through inclusiveness (especially for minority students), reduced racism, and multicultural school culture. In schools with a majority of low socioeconomic status (SES) students, principals’ success was often associated with ongoing improvement in school disciplinary climate (e.g., reduced student behavior issues, dropouts, and absenteeism; enhanced student respect, self-esteem, and student engagement). In contrast, in those schools with high SES, the success indicators were associated with students’ social and emotional development, empowered engagement, leadership, participation in extracurricular activities, and innovative instructional programs for sustained success.

These findings not only reflect those of research internationally about the different range of learning and achievement priorities experienced and attended to by principals in schools serving communities different SES contexts but also how they achieved success. A unique indicator in high or secondary schools was high matriculation eligibility or percentage enrolled in colleges [57,66,102], whereas in urban schools, school success was also associated with students’ non-academic success in engagement, self-esteem, emotional growth, behavior, and increased enrollment and attendance, as well as with innovative curriculum and good school reputation [10,11,12,13,14,16,50,51,95,96,97,98,100,101,103,112,116,125,126]. Australian cases also emphasized more strongly students’ sense of community within the school, leadership development, collaboration, support, and engagement with parents and community (e.g., [50,51,53,55,84,101,112,125,126]). Swedish studies mentioned that students’ non-academic success was seen in reductions in social problems or racism [25,53,55,59,75,76,84,95,96,98,100,101,103,116,126]. Most of these indicators were also observed in rural and suburban case schools [25,48,49,51,52,53,56,58,66,84,102,107,127,128]. In the schools situated on the US–Mexico border, with considerable immigrant student populations, bilingual programs and student happiness were also indicators of success (e.g., [116,117]). In schools where more than half the students were African American, the success indicators encompassed student engagement, school safety, parent support, and improved disciplinary climate (e.g., [50,77,95,97,98,100,101,104,112,129]). Whereas initial data analyses had identified these indicators as separate, later interpretations identified patterns of application of multiple rather than singular strategies and actions. It became clear that the special or unique success indicators of each school at any given time were associated with the contexts of its unique challenges, needs, and features.

4.2. Successful Principalship Practices (RQ2)

Evidence reported in the 69 case studies in the analysis revealed the most typical successful principalship practices. We started with the coding scheme and mother nodes developed from previous reviews [4] of the ISSPP studies, which included 12 primary SPPs. As we coded studies, we kept updating and enriching the description of these practices. Thus, nine new practices were added, and dozens of new child nodes were developed from these nine new practices primary SPPs. Also, the new elements were not simply adding to an existing “list” of practices, but an indication of increasing complexity, illustrated by, as above, principals’ combinations and accumulations of a range of “fit-for-purpose”, contextually purposed strategies and actions based upon broad rather than narrow educational purposes and values. Thus, we used new phrases to reflect emerging findings, especially from recent publications, reclassified leadership practices, and reconfigured domains, as outlined below. Italicized text indicates the insights or prominent aspects of successful principalship derived from this meta-synthesis. Once again, these practices were combined, and the emphasis within and between each domain differed according to the schools’ phases of improvement. Thus, although these practices are listed below in terms of “domain”, the emphasis across and within each domain differed.

• Domain 1: Building shared visions, setting standards, and identifying pathways to improvement

1. Identify and articulate a shared vision.

2. Demonstrate and implement high expectations.

3. Foster agreement about group goals and keep focused on the agreed school goals and priorities.

• Domain 2: Enhancing collective instructional competencies and capabilities

• 4.. Build supportive, strong, and trustful working relationships inside the school community.

• 5.. Enhance collective instructional competencies (esp. culturally responsive teaching and pedagogy).

• 6.. Provide continuing, differentiated, and collective support for individual staff.

• 7.. Offer intellectual stimulation that promotes reflection.

• 8.. Model desired values and practices.

• Domain 3: Building organizational capacities and collaborative cultures

• 9.. Restructure the organization/create structures to support, institute, and sustain collaborative processes, inquiries, and cultures, and desired practices.

• 10.. Build collaborative, distributed leadership in the school, utilizing participatory governance and involving stakeholders in decision-making.

• 11.. Develop a safe, orderly, inclusive, and conducive learning environment.

• Domain 4: Improving the instructional program

• 12.. Continually improve classroom teaching and foster instructional innovation (e.g., new pedagogy).

• 13.. Staff the school’s program with teachers well matched to the school’s priorities (e.g., hiring high-quality, diverse teachers).

• 14.. Provide instructional support.

• 15.. Monitor student progress.

• 16.. Buffer staff from distractions to their work.

• 17.. Redesign and enrich the curriculum.

• Domain 5: Building the School’s Capacity to Manage Change over Time

• 18.. Build civic relationships with school communities and enlist greater parent and external community’s support, involvement, or partnership.

• 19.. React to the context with contextual intelligence and be proactive (e.g., reach out to and meet the needs of the school and communities).

• 20.. Build the school’s capacity to change with resilience.

Domain 1: Setting directions/building shared visions, and identifying pathways to improvement

Specific sets of practices in the first domain, building vision and setting directions, were aimed at bringing a focus to both the individual and collective work of staff in the school [4]. The collective development of a shared vision was emphasized in many cases (e.g., [50,52]). The importance of principals’ holding and actually implementing high expectations was also described across contexts (e.g., [17,19,52]). Successful principals determined direction and set priorities based on urgent needs within the school, the expectations of parents and the immediate school community, their value-driven professional judgment, leadership expertise, and contextual intelligence. Principals’ direction-setting practices were mainly influenced by factors at the microlevel, to a lesser extent at the mesolevel (with exceptions, such as in Cyprus case schools), and by mandates from the exosystems to an adequate extent (e.g., school ranking, report cards, Ofsted inspection). For example, direction setting by US principals in high-needs schools tended to be short-term and initially explicitly linked to national, state, and local demands for greater accountability [97,104]. They tended to use tests and other accountability data to set school goals and improvement plans and monitor progress towards those goals, whereas direction-setting by Australian principals initially focused instead on lifelong learning and other indicators of success [110]. The development of democratic values in the service of responsible citizenship was central to direction-setting in Norway and Sweden (e.g., [75,130]). However, responsible citizenship, lifelong learning, and accountability featured in the work of all principals.

Domain 2: Enhancing collective instructional competencies and capabilities

The second domain related to understanding and developing people, and included three primary practices: providing support to individual staff; offering intellectual stimulation that promotes reflection; and modeling desired values and present and future practices. In addition to these practices, we added the following two practices because these are two of the three most frequently reported SPPs across the nine countries (see Figure 4 for the three most common practices).

• Build supportive, strong, and trustful working relationships inside the school community.

• Enhance teachers’ collective teaching competencies and capabilities (e.g., common teaching philosophy, consistent instructional practices, common assessment, adaptability, and knowledge accommodation).

Creating strong, supportive, and trustworthy relationships was the most frequently reported SPP (e.g., [26,61,62,63,65,80,95,96]). This relationship-building extends primarily to within-school stakeholders, parents, and school communities. The way principals built relationships was mainly influenced by stakeholders in the micro- and mesosystems. For example, upon arrival at a Cypriot primary school on the verge of being declared a zone of educational priority with a deteriorating physical environment, serious discipline problems, low levels of achievement, disempowered teachers, and a hostile parents’ association, the principal made her first priority the formation of strong interpersonal relationships with the teachers and children, which ultimately proved vital for the creation of an excellent school climate. All stakeholders viewed the principal as a superordinate “mother” figure who unconditionally supported all teachers and children. As a parent commented, “I believe this is what the teachers here feel and the children: trust that she will support them no matter what” [65]. As a result of the principal’s support and trust, the teachers eagerly followed the principal’s example of performance, hard work, and resilience, creating a school culture of professional learning and commitment.

The next most frequently reported SPP was improving teachers’ collective instructional competencies through multiple forms of professional development (PD) activities. Common features of PD include a focus on continuing, collaborative learning opportunities such as peer tutoring, workshops, and professional learning communities. These activities are designed to keep teachers updated with the latest pedagogical strategies, subject knowledge, and educational technologies. Furthermore, PD often involves mentoring, coaching, and feedback, providing teachers with personalized support to refine their instructional practices. Principalship plays a pivotal role in facilitating these opportunities, with principals and school leaders restructuring schedules, allocating resources, and fostering a culture that values growth and learning.

However, the approach and implementation of PD varied significantly across different contexts, reflecting the unique challenges and needs of each school environment. For instance, in some schools, PD was closely aligned with strategic school improvement goals, focusing on specific areas like literacy, numeracy, or technology integration. In others, PD was more teacher-driven, with educators identifying their own learning needs and seeking out relevant opportunities. The variation also extended to the source of PD, ranging from external experts and conferences to internal workshops and peer-led sessions. Again, the approaches used were common to all principals over time.

The most frequently reported and effective PD form was collaborative inquiry. In such a process, teachers diagnosed learning gaps or problems and addressed these issues collaboratively, representing a genuine partnership and reciprocal support model for professional and personal enhancement and aligning well with the capacity-building focus of successful school principals [25,26,131]. Collective instructional competencies emphasized the overall collective ability of the teachers in a school to handle complex instructional tasks comprehensively and effectively. For example, under the influence of the principal of an Australian suburban primary school, teachers’ common understanding and practices of effective teaching in the school centered on four pillars: teacher-directed learning; explicit instruction; using strategies to move knowledge from short- to long-term memory; and finally establishing good relationships with students. The principal also worked extensively with teachers and expected all to show commitment to the students and the school and to want to improve [52]. He also constantly questioned teaching beliefs and behaviors if teachers showed low efficacy. In an Australian secondary school, a common explicit instructional model was also developed, with common assessment tasks and curriculum design teams established to implement a whole-school approach to teaching and learning. Structures were created for teachers to work in triads to observe one another’s practices and plans for improvement, and literacy and numeracy coaches were employed to work closely with staff and students alike. Such collective instructional competencies were regarded as essential to student and school success. Over time, PD in all the schools had evolved to reflect changes in educational priorities, technological advancements, and the shifting needs of students and communities and to ensure that teachers remained adaptable and effective in their roles. Although principals’ efforts to improve teachers’ instructional competencies were mainly influenced by microlevel factors, they also used external opportunities to provide PD for teachers, such as district workshops, conferences, and national board certification.

Domain 3: Building organizational capacities and collaborative cultures

Successful principals were reported to build leadership capacity in schools in a variety of ways, through formal and informal structures, teams, delegation (a more hierarchical and integrated model) [92], and decentralized and distributed leadership [120]. Among the three most frequently reported SPPs was nurturing a caring, supportive, inclusive, engaging, and happy environment in school and fostering collaborations with teachers through professional learning communities, teams, or data teams (e.g., [26]) (see some examples provided for the second domain). These processes were leveraged to help teachers engage in collective critical reflection, debate, and collaborative inquiries into student progress and effective instructional practices [110,130] or teaching and leadership expertise [52,132]. We also added an SPP about building collaborative, distributed leadership in the school, utilizing participatory governance, and involving stakeholders in decision-making. They established formalized routines for meetings, distributed leadership, utilized a feedback system to obtain information, and ensured clear decision-making structures and leadership from the middle [133]. They also embraced shared decision-making [72]. For example, in one case study in Norway, the principal worked together as part of the senior leadership team [78] in an upper-secondary school in a large multicultural city. In another example, the principal worked with management teams in Nicosia in a rural, low-SES middle school [63]. In a third, in a Norwegian middle school with a diverse student population, the principal participated in team meetings and practiced modern management [54]. Principals also used informal structures to run schools, such as in an infant and primary school in Spain where 90% of students were ethnically Roma [106]. Successful principals also created teams of teachers. For example, decentralized leadership was framed with responsibility and distinctiveness in a large junior high Sweden school with a high proportion of immigrants [75]. Organization-wide communication was showcased in a case in a secondary school in a mid-sized town in northern Sweden, where the principal met with team leaders to share information [73]. Other successful principal practices in this regard included redesigning the leadership and staff teams and implementing training and development for all [120], as shown in a mixed comprehensive school context and political environment, and utilizing culturally responsive leadership, as shown in a principal’s efforts to develop a leadership team in a poor urban school with 92% Latino/Hispanic students [117].

Building shared leadership empowered teachers to improve instruction in the classroom, which in turn empowered students to take leadership in their own work, school-wide initiatives, and community service (e.g., [134]). For example, in a secondary school in an Australia inner-city suburb, student-centered learning centered on the provision of broad opportunities for student voice and agency that allowed them to explore their individual talents and interests [26]. The curriculum was predominantly designed for negotiated, integrated inquiry units where students co-developed learning activities within broad themes. In another example, students were empowered by being involved in decision-making processes or committees, such as staff selection panels for appointing new staff. Students formed curriculum committees responsible for decisions on teaching and learning and providing feedback to their teachers every five weeks [102]. Students also led work initiatives, such as animal production and the student-run café. Such collaborative and empowering leadership involving all stakeholders, especially students carefully nurtured in these schools, is a vital capacity or strength that distinguishes them from other schools.

To this domain of building organizational capacities and collaborative cultures is also added the leadership practice of developing a safe, orderly, inclusive, and conducive learning environment due to the high frequency of the mention of these elements in most of the case studies. For example, in the course of turning around one elementary school, a modern building with diverse students (80% on free or reduced lunch) in a city neighborhood surrounded by empty lots and derelict buildings, the new principal set the primary goal of creating a safe and nurturing child-centered learning environment that focused on addressing students’ basic social and emotional needs. Similarly, the principal of a secondary academy, a US school characterized by high transiency (47.8%), poor attendance, discipline problems, and a school building covered with graffiti and in disrepair, the principal helped parents advocate to “make their community a better place to live” by addressing safety issues in the immediate neighborhood and implementing changes related to the safety and security of her school. This was reported as the most frequently employed practice during the initial phase of improving schools.

Domain 4: Improving the Instructional Program

In the fourth domain of improving the instructional program, the leadership practice of improving classroom teaching, and fostering instructional innovation and next best practice were highlighted in the data. A typical example is what a principal of an Australian school did [52]. Generating the greatest of impact on the school over time was a shift away from traditional learning and classroom structures to a curriculum focused on students’ individual interests and needs and individualized learning [102]. As a part of their individualized learning plan (ILP) co-created with teachers, all students took control of their learning by selecting 100% of their course load from more than 150 electives, as well as alternative educational programs and pathways such as Vocational education and training courses and the Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning. Students learnt in mixed-age classes after completing the basic literacy and numeracy units. They were able to complete over a period of between four to eight years what was typically a six-year secondary school program [52]. This operating mode has led to the teachers and students striving to innovate and foster next practice [52,72], and was identified as a key to their continuing improvement and sustained success.

Domain 5: Building the School’s Capacity to Manage Change over Time

In the fifth domain of building schools, we identified three interrelated leadership practices that contribute to enhancing the school’s capacity to sustain success and manage change. These practices were reported in almost all reviewed cases:

• Respond to the context with contextual intelligence and being proactive (e.g., reach out to and meet the needs of the school and communities).

• Build the school’s capacity to manage change.

• Apply systems thinking to navigate layers of contextual influences with political acuity to solve complex problems.

As stated by Mincu et al. [129], 20 years of research in England indicates that successful school principals play the most crucial role in creating values-driven organizational capacity, conditions, and cultures that enable the school organization to respond to, adapt to, and thrive amidst internal and external challenges and changes. Such “ecological resilience”, a term used in this study, encompasses the ability of a school to adapt, withstand disturbances, and maintain its goals while thriving in the face of environmental changes or challenges. It signifies a school’s capacity to survive and flourish and sustain its essential ecological processes, biodiversity, and overall health. Systems thinking models illustrate the connectivity, interrelatedness, and reciprocity among the various components, emphasizing a interaction within and between parts and the whole [26]. Principals who apply systems thinking perceive problems or tasks from a systemic perspective, navigate carefully through layers of contextual influences with political acuity, and provide solutions to rational and technical problems, as well as complex and less defined problems [135], thus enabling the school not only to survive in complex contexts but also to push through and thrive. The meta-synthesis, enabled us to delineate three key phases of principal practices—the beginning phase, middle phase, and later stage—in relation to their priorities, objectives, and actions. In the beginning phase, principals primarily focus on enhancing the school environment, fostering community engagement, and demonstrating leadership and vision. The principalship process of achieving success often began by addressing the school’s most pressing needs, for example, making efforts to bring order to chaos. Improving the learning environment was a crucial prerequisite for successful school initiatives in challenging, high-poverty US case schools, where students and teachers had concerns about their physical safety [136]. Leaders in Australia and Norway prioritized establishing clear behavior policies focused on creating a supportive environment to tackle underlying issues [102,134]. In some schools, building external relationships with communities occurred first as an approach to achieving success, such as in centralized Cyprus schools [13]. Principals in Israel emphasized initiatives like computer labs and digital reporting systems, whereas leaders in other countries placed less emphasis on such initiatives [57].

In the middle phase, successful principals typically focused on teachers’ professional development, instructional improvements, student-centered approaches, and school cultural shifts. They differed in their methods and specific educational offerings and programs. In Australia, for instance, principals emphasized a clear schoolwide curriculum, while leaders in Israel focused on individual student mapping [102,111]. The pace and nature of cultural shifts within schools could vary as well. This is the stage where essential changes take place. The extent of the change, intervention, or innovative practice for school improvement could range from incremental to transformative, even to disruptive or revolutionary [137]. Essential changes took place in the relationships among school stakeholders, practices of teachers, school culture, learning environment, curriculum development, and pedagogy, all resulting in and reflected in the classroom. Successful principals recognized that no change is successful unless it ultimately happens in the classroom, for example, by teachers relearning their craft and rewriting their curriculum, parents understanding and supporting their children and schools, and students engaging and being motivated to work harder and/or differently to meet higher expectations. For example, an Australian principal challenged teachers’ pedagogical practices with the construction of a “Centre for Contemporary Learning”, shifting the focus from the content of what to learn to how students learn, with teachers as facilitators and mentors in the learning process (e.g., [137]). Another Australian principal changed the culture from a “welfare culture” of caring to a broader educational culture of caring and learning (e.g., [137]). Sooner or later, these practices improved the status of five important contributors essential to success: academic culture (e.g., pushing for academic excellence, a safe, orderly, inclusive learning environment, and maximized instructional time), collective instructional capacity, positive emotions (e.g., caring, supportive, and trustful relationships), collaborative and empowering leadership capacity, and parent and community partnership.

In the later phase, continuing improvement and growth were key themes for principals aiming to sustain success or move the school ever further forward. Principals made further changes to meet specific needs and challenges, address ongoing issues in the school, or promote innovation. For example, in an Israel case, the principal concentrated on restructuring the exam system and monitoring student progress, whereas a Norwegian principal addressed school reputation and the integration of immigrant students [111,134]. Key leadership practices for this phase of sustaining success include self-renewing communication (negotiation and deliberation), distributing leadership, demonstrating resilience, upholding core cultural and educational values, for example, equity values, committing to making a difference, engaging the school and wider community, and using different leadership approaches. There is a difference between sustaining success and taking a school from great to excellent. Successful principals who constantly gauge the current status, reassess the context, and make further changes proactively with resilience and the ability to innovate moved their schools forward continuously.

Differences in context affected the nature, direction, pace, and timing of leadership actions in each phase. The most frequently reported continuing practices over time were building relationships, fostering collaboration, and distributing leadership across contexts (see Figure 4). Successful principals enacted common practices to varying degrees, in different ways, and in various combinations as needed for their specific contexts. When implementing the same practice, principals adopted different approaches. This means that successful principals used different leadership approaches through varied strategies and combinations of practices. Their strategies for achieving success varied throughout different phases of school improvement, yet although principals demonstrated combinations of various leadership approaches in different contexts and at different times, they remained values-led [120]. Principals’ responses to contexts ranged from conforming, non-conforming, contingent, situational, sensitive, responsive, challenging, overcoming, adaptive, to proactive (called contextual intelligence [138]), with being proactive coupled with the necessary degree of change and increasing innovation ability contributing to a school’s continuing values-led improvement to the largest extent. Although they responded differently and more urgently to address the immediate needs of students, teachers, and the school and to meet the requests or expectations of parents and the immediate school community more than those of broader contexts, they also reacted equally to external non-negotiable mandates, such as those from the state, in their work. In other words, successful principals enhanced their school’s collective instructional capacities by cultivating supportive, collaborative cultures at the microsystem level while effectively addressing exosystem demands.

In sum, successful principals responded simultaneously to school demographic characteristics (e.g., student population, socioeconomic status) at the micro- and mesolevel, the immediate community where a school resides at the mesolevel, districts, or municipalities where a school reports at the exolevel, and across countries, especially with the overall educational system, policies, and acts, at the macrolevel. Principals navigating the influences of these nested systems and balancing top-down external mandates, local school and community needs, and the school’s core values to support students from diverse backgrounds appeared to be common in the accounts of success in many countries.

4.3. RQ3: What Are the Qualities of Successful Principals in the Global School Context?

We identified eight categories of principal qualities that—when combined—influence school leadership success: cognitive capacities, interpersonal capabilities, dispositions, skills/capacities, motivation, values/beliefs, emotional understanding/literacy, and social intelligence. These inherent qualities are interconnected and interact with one another (e.g., beliefs can influence values and dispositions, with some being hard to change (e.g., religious beliefs held by Indonesian Muslim principals), whilst others can be developed (e.g., pedagogical knowledge, leadership training)). Successful principals consistently demonstrated qualities such as care and commitment in both diverse and homogeneous student populations [25,47,96], with caring the most prominent quality.

Principals’ qualities were influenced by their own internal characteristics, such as life experience, family, work, and education, and less by external contexts. Differences in personal qualities were also observed based on the level of education managed, from elementary to high school, with qualities such as empathy at the elementary level and confidence at the secondary level [62,86].

In varying geographic contexts, from urban to rural, principals drew upon and applied such qualities as resilience and passion appropriately to address specific local needs [106,139] at the micro- and mesolevel. Australian principals emphasized holistic student development, while other studies highlighted the interaction between context and principals’ personal qualities [53,101]. Principals’ values also varied in relation to their responses to broader contexts, such as national policies at the macrolevel. For example, principals in Spain with educational policies promoting equity and social justice, but no laws to alleviate the severe problems of educational inequality, were empathetic, approachable, and accessible, while principals in Norway showed optimism, creativity, and persistence in response to new and contradictory policy expectations. Regardless of context, successful principals in all countries possessed many qualities in common: caring, resilience, proactivity, courage/confidence, commitment/passion/enthusiasm, and approachability (see Figure 5).

A principal’s qualities and behaviors form his or her unique leadership profile, with the former being much more stable and the latter contingent upon the school and larger contexts. Although these core values were similar across school sites, the internal and external school context influenced the way in which they were translated into school practices and procedures. The congruence of these two (e.g., “walking the talk”, sincerity, authenticity) also influences school stakeholders and school culture. Principals’ qualities shape their behaviors and directly interact with and influence school process variables (e.g., trust; safe, caring, warm, and nurturing environments; positive relationships). Eleven qualities differentiate successful principals from unsuccessful ones: moral purpose for all students to succeed; authentic caring; leadership expertise (expert problem-solving); adaptation within clear sets of educational values; being fit-for-purpose; timely and context-sensitive decision-making; passion and resilience; professional values; realistic Utopian approach; social and communication skills; and political acuity.

5. Discussion and Conclusions

The literature that has informed this meta-synthesis is the largest and most extensive corpus of international, peer-reviewed published research, stretching over two decades. This paper represents a further step forward from understandings presented by existing research findings, in which preferred, generalized “models” have often been created as a means of representing single-paradigm investigations, “snapshots”, “self-reports”, or “ideologically framed” understanding of “effectiveness” or “success”. In adopting a theoretical basis lodged in a deeply felt desire to understand more about what makes and sustains principal success over time, the ISSPP identified ecological human systems theory, itself located in complexity theory, as a means of placing principals’ work in a broader set of macro-, exo-, meso-, micro-, and chrono systems, as well as human systems contexts. Uniquely, using agreed protocols, ISSPP researchers from many countries and cultures have achieved this by conducting multi-perspective, multi-layered research on selected principals whose schools have measurably improved over at least the last three years under their leadership and using country-specific criteria for defining success. They have asked questions of them and their staff relating not only to the “what” and “who” but also the “when” and “how” as the principals navigated the different, complex layers of the ecosystem in which they operatedto achieve success. What is significant is that they did so through timely, contextually relevant combinations of decisions, relationships, and actions that were common among all. This meta-synthesis, the first of its kind, provides robust claims, optimizes the authority of individual country findings, unveils context influence patterns, and paints a comprehensive and cohesive picture of what a successful principal looks like at the global level. By synthesizing the diverse findings from 69 case studies, we gained a deeper appreciation of the multifaceted nature of success in educational leadership and the nuanced but deeply connected values, qualities, strategies, relationships, and actions employed by principals within and across the layers of the ecological system to foster success in their respective contexts.

Our review reconceptualizes the original four-domain SPP framework into a five-domain framework and illustrates how principals enact these SPPs in parallel with different emphases according to their judgments of contextual needs, taking account of interactions within and between the five layers of contexts in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological human systems theory. To achieve success, principals prioritize these practices, engage different practices in different school improvement phases, and eventually enact all of them to sustain success. What distinguishes successful principalship from less successful principalship is the degree, depth, timing, and frequency that successful principals enact these practices and the range of these practices. As Day [131] commented, principals apply a greater combination and accumulation of successful leadership strategies with greater intensity.

Similarly, we identified seven sets of leadership qualities among successful principals across countries. What distinguishes successful principalship from less successful principalship are educational principles and personal and professional dispositions (e.g., caring, passion), core values, cognitive capacities, professional and leadership knowledge and expertise, emotional and social intelligence, commitment and resilience, and the degree to which they demonstrate and act upon these as they respond to contextual demands or emphases (e.g., accountability policy, district mandates). Although core values were similar across school sites, the internal and external school context influenced the way in which they were translated into school practices and procedures. For example, when facing high levels of challenge, successful principals in schools that served high-needs communities applied a greater combination or cluster of strategies with greater intensity and employed a broader range of personal and social skills than those in schools serving more advantaged communities [61]. Much more research is needed to understand how principals navigate with political acuity and wisdom to achieve and sustain success and build the resilience of their schools to make them not only survive but also thrive in challenging contexts.

Although many measures have been taken to ensure the credibility and accuracy of this synthesis, as outlined in the Methods section (e.g., high interrater coding reliability, following systematic review guidelines, using the best evidence from the ISSPP publications), there are certain limitations associated with this meta-synthesis, including the subjective nature of ethnographic interpretation, the complexity and time demands of conducting the research over three years, and limited generalizability to other contexts. Nonetheless, using meta-ethnography and systematic review, this meta-synthesis has provided a deeper understanding of leadership, revealing its complexity and offering insights into the dynamic interactions among leadership qualities, practices, contextual influences, processes, and outcomes.

Informed by findings from this review, as well as broader research evidence (e.g., [60,64,113,140]), it is clear that successful principals’ own principles, educational values, professional knowledge, capabilities, experience, and psychological states (taken together as leadership expertise) interact with one another, informing their decision-making and navigation of the ecology of complex environments in collectively and interdependently giving rise to what they do and how well the school succeeds. Although successful principals’ leadership is influenced by the context in which they work (layers of contextual influence at the community, district/municipal, state, national, and global levels), it is not dictated by this. Aspiring and in-service principals can use the findings of this review to guide their reflection upon and improve their leadership and leadership capital. Leadership preparation programs and leadership developers in different countries can enhance the leadership expertise of aspiring and in-service principals by improving their leadership knowledge (e.g., through curriculum and professional development) and experience (e.g., through internships) with a focus not only on the commonalities, basics, or leadership standards but also on their contextual intelligence. It is important that curriculum contents, materials, and instructional approaches help students understand the complexity of leadership. Additionally, these elements should build students’ resilience, wisdom, and capabilities to work in, adapt to, navigate, and make effective changes in the ecological systems and political environments in which they operate. Moreover, students need to understand the processes to achieve school success, which can start with different strategies depending on internal and external contexts and accountability. Ultimately, they need to address the six key features of schooling, as discussed, to sustain change and achieve greater continuous success. Preparation programs should not only help students to transfer their knowledge to similar contexts (low-road transfer) but also to different contexts (i.e., high-road transfer). District-, state-, and national-level leadership organizations and policymakers can influence principals’ professional values through policies and the focus of events (e.g., conferences, workshops, guest talks) they organize and host. They can also make principals’ work easier by making policies, external demands, and professional development more congruent and by providing needed support aligned with school success indicators.

Author Contributions

J.S. was the lead author of the paper and analyzed the data. C.D. co-wrote the paper, R.Z., H.Z., T.H. and J.L. collected and analyzed the data. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data Availability Statement

No new data was generated in this study.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Footnotes

Disclaimer/Publisher’s Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

Figures and Tables

Figure 1. PRISMA Flowchart of the search process for the studies reviewed.

Figure 2. Framework for sampling knowledge about principal leadership. Leithwood and Day (2007) [4].

Figure 3. Framework for review and coding.

Figure 4. Successful principals’ practices by country.

Figure 5. Successful principals’ personal qualities by country.

Table 1

Descriptions of the studies reviewed.

Author	Year	Pub Type	Journal Quality	Reader-Ship	Case Country	Research and Sampling Methods	Cases	Participants	Data Type
Gurr and Drysdale [46]	2003	1	2	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1 and 6
Gurr, Drysdale, Di Natale, Ford, Hardy and Swann [47]	2003	1	3	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu. and 48–60 Par. and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1 and 6
Drysdale [48]	2007	2	N/A	N/A	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 10–16 Stu. And 10–16 Par. and 1 CC and 1 CSB and 1 SCM	N/A
Gurr [49]	2007	2	N/A	N/A	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 10–16 Stu. and 10–16 Par. and 1 CC and 1 CSB and 1 SCM	4 and 6
Gurr, Drysdale and Mulford [50]	2007	1	1	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1 and 6
Drystale, Goode and Gurr [51]	2009	1	1	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 1 CC and 6 T and 1 CSB and 1 SCM and 10–16 Par. and 10–16 Stu.	1 and 3
Gurr, Drysdale and Mulford [52]	2010	1	3	N/A	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1 and 6
Drysdale, Goode and Gurr [53]	2011	2	N/A	N/A	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and 2 AP and 12 T and 20–32 Stu. and 20–32 Par. and 2 CC and 2 CSB and 2 SCM	1 and 3 and 6
Drysdale and Gurr [25]	2011	1	1	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	4	4 P and 4 AP and 24 T and 64–80 Stu and 64–80 Par and 4 CC and 4 CSB and 4 SCM	1 and 2
Doherty, Gurr, and Drysdale [54]	2014	2	N/A	N/A	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 1 CC and 6 T and 1 CSB and 1 SCM and 10–16 Par. and 10–16 Stu.	N/A
Drystale, Gurr, and Goode [55]	2016	1	1	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1
Gurr and Acuqro [56]	2018	1	2	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1
Gurr, Drysdale, Longmuir, and McCrohan [57]	2018	1	1	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	1
Gurr et al. [58]	2019	2	N/A	N/A	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	3 P and 3 AP and 18 T and 48–60 Stu and 48–60 Par and 3 CC and 3 CSB and 3 SCM	N/A
Longmuir [59]	2019	1	2	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 10–16 Stu. and 10–16 Par. and 1 CC and 1 CSB and 1 SCM	1 and 3
Gurr, Longmuir and Reed [60]	2020	1	1	1	Australia	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and 2 AP and 12 T and 32–40 Stu and 32–40 Par and 2 CC and 2 CSB and 2 SCM	1 and 3
Pashiardis et al. [61]	2011	1	1	1	Cyprus	Case study; Purposeful sampling	5	5 P and T and Par. and Stu	4 and 6
Pashiardis et al. [62]	2012	1	2	1	Cyprus	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and T and Par. and Stu	1 and 4
Pashiardis and Savvides [63]	2014	2	N/A	N/A	Cyprus	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and T and Par.	1
Pashiardis et al. [64]	2018	1	1	1	Cyprus	Qualitative study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and 10 T and 6 Stu	4
Pashiardis et al. [65]	2018	1	3	1	Cyprus	Case study; Random sampling	2	2 P and 10 T and 10 Stu	4
Yaakov and Tubin [66]	2013	2	N/A	N/A	Israel	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P	1
Tubin [67]	2015	1	1	1	Israel	Case study; Purposeful sampling	7	P and AP and SLT and SCM and Sch Psy. And Sup. and External agents	1, 3, 4, 6 and 7
Notman [68]	2009	1	3	1	New Zealand	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and Stu. and Par.	1
Notman [69]	2014	2	N/A	N/A	New Zealand	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and senior T and T and Stu. and DP	1
Notman [70]	2017	1	1	1	New Zealand	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and T and BT	1
Notman [71]	2020	1	3	1	New Zealand	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and Senior leader and BT	4
Moller and Eggen [72]	2005	1	1	1	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	2 P and T and Stu. and Par. and LT and Emp. and UP and Ind.	1 and 3
Moller [73]	2006	1	1	1	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	T and Stu. and Par. and DO	1 and 3
Vedoy and Moller [74]	2007	1	N/A	N/A	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and Stu	1 and 3
Moller, Vedoy, Prethus, and Skedsmo [75]	2009	1	1	1	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	T and 1 P	1 and 2
Moller, Vedoy, Prethus, and Skedsmo [76]	2009	1	N/A	1	Norway	N/A	2	T and 2 P	1
Moller and Vedoy [77]	2014	2	N/A	N/A	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and T	1
Ballangrud and Paulsen [78]	2018	1	2	1	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and Stu. and T and LT	4
Moller [79]	2018	1	N/A	1	Norway	Mix study; Purposeful sampling	1	8 T and 1 P and 8 Stu and 1 Sup. and 2 Deputy	1 and 5 and 7
Ballangrud and Aas [80]	2022	1	1	1	Norway	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	41 in total (2 P and T and Stu and Leaders)	1 and 3
Moral et al. [81]	2017	1	1	N/A	Spain	Qualitative study; Random sampling	4	4 P and 14 T and 3/4 Par. and 4/5 Stu and Inspectors	4
González-Falcón, García-Rodríguez, Gómez-Hurtado, and Carrasco-Macías [82]	2020	1	1	2	Spain	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	P and T and Par. and Stu and 2 Outside agent	1
Santaella [83]	2020	1	2	N/A	Spain	Qualitative	2	2 P	3 and 4 and 1
Höög, Johansson and Olofsson [84]	2005	1	1	1	Sweden	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	1 CSB and 1 super and 12 Stu and 2 P and 6 T	1
Ärlestig [85]	2007	1	3	1	Sweden	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	6 T and 2 P	1 and 5 and 6
Johansson, Davis, and Geijer [86]	2007	1	1	1	Sweden	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	2 P and 4 T and Stu	1 and 2 and 3 and 6
Ärlestig [87]	2008	1	3	1	Sweden	Case study; Purposeful sampling	5	5 P and 25 T	1 and 4 and 5
Höög, Johansson, and Olofsson [88]	2009	1	1	1	Sweden	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and T and Stu	1 and 2 and 3
Ärlestig and Törnsén [89]	2014	2	N/A	N/A	Sweden	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P	1
Day [90]	2014	1	1	1	UK	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	P	1
Day [91]	2014	1	2	1	UK	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	P and Staff and Par.	1
Day, Gu, Sammons [92]	2016	1	1	1	UK	Mix study; Purposeful sampling	1	P and Staff and other colleagues	1 and 2
Day and Gu [93]	2018	1	1	1	UK	Case study; Purposeful sampling	2	P and Senior/Mid leaders and T	4
Gu, Sammons, and Chen [94]	2018	1	1	1	UK	Mix study; Purposeful sampling	1	P and Staff and stakeholders	1 and 2
Jacobson et al. [95]	2004	1	2	1	US	Case study; Purposeful and random sampling	3	P and T and Staff and Par. and Stu. (18 + 17 + 20 = 55 educators)	4 and 6 and 7
Giles, Johnson, Brooks, and Jacobson [96]	2005	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful and random sampling	1	1 P and 13 Faculty and 4 Staff and 18 Par.	1 and 4 and 6 and 7
Giles [97]	2006	1	2	1	US	Case study; Purposeful and random sampling	3	3 P and 40 T and 15 Staff and 29 Par.	4 and 6 and 7
Jacobson et al. [15]	2007	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful and random sampling	3	P and T and Staff and Par. and Stu	4 and 7
Johnson [98]	2007	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	T and P and Par.	1 and 7
Giles [99]	2007	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	3	N/A	N/A
Ylimaki [100]	2007	1	2	1	US	Case study	4	P and T	1
Jacobson, Johnson, Ylimaki and Giles [101]	2009	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 1 CBT and 6 T and 6 Par.	1 and 2 and 7
Ramalho, Garza and Merchant [102]	2010	1	1	1	US	Case study;Purposeful sampling	2	2 P and11 T and5 Adm. and12 Par. and11 Stu.	1 and 4 and 5 and 7
Garza, Murakami and Merchant [103]	2011	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P	1
Jacobson, Johnson, and Ylimaki [104]	2011	2	N/A	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P and 1 AP and 1 CBT and 6 T and 6 Par.	1 and 2 and 6 and 7
Dugan, Ylimaki and Bennet [105]	2012	1	3	1	US	Case study	1	P and T and Par.	1
Murakami, Garza and Merchant [106]	2012	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	P and T and Par.	1
Ylimaki et al. [107]	2012	1	2	1	US	Case study; Purposeful and random sampling	4	P and SCM and AP and CC and T and 6 Par. and 6 Stu.	1 and 2 and 6
Klar and Brewer [108]	2013	1	1	1	US	Mix study; Purposeful sampling	3	P and other stakeholders	1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 6
Klar et al. [109]	2013	1	N/A	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	P and Adm. and T and Staff and 6 Par. and 6 Stu.	1 and 2 and 4 and 6
Dugan and Bennet [110]	2014	2	N/A	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	P and T	1
Klar and Brewer [111]	2014	1	1	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	2 P and 1 AP and 6 T and 1 Staff and 2 Par.	1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6
Minor-Ragan and Jacobson [112]	2014	2	N/A	1	US	Case study; Purposeful sampling	1	1 P	1

Notes: Publication Type: 1 = article; 2 = chapter. Journal Quality: 1 = tier 1; 2 = tier 2; 3 = tier 3; Readership: 1 = international; 2 = national or local; Data Type: 1 = Interview; 2 = Site visit; 3 = Observation; 4 = Semi-structured interview; 5 = Questionnaire; 6 = Document; 7 = Focus group. SSP = Successful School Principalship. Participants: T = Teacher; P = Principal; AP = Assistant Principal; DC = Dept Chair; TL = Teacher leader; Stu. = Student; Par. = Parents; Sup. = Superintendent; CC = Curriculum coordinator; DO = District officials; SCM = School council members; DP = Deputy principal; CM = Community members; BT = Board of Trustees; SL = Senior leader; CSB = chairman of school board; CBT = Chairman of Board of Trustees; Emp = Employees; LT = Leadership team; UR = Union representatives; Ind = individuals; Adm. = Administrative staff

Table 2

Success, principal’s personal qualities, and practices in relation to contexts.

Findings	Microsystems						Meso-	Exo-	Macro			Chrono-
	Stu Performance	SES	Culture	Stu Population	Location	Level	Parents, School Community	Sch Ranking	Policy	Political	Culture and Values
Success	HiLo	HiLo	Teacher leavingBehavioral issues	Diverse HomogeneousNeeds	UrbanSuburbanRural	Elem.MiddleHigh	SupportiveNegative	Reginal partnership	Pressure to increase scores, accountability	Ed. systemCentralizedDecentralized	By country	Over time
Qualities	HiLo	HiLo	Teacher leavingBehavioral issues	Diverse HomogeneousNeeds	UrbanSuburbanRural	Elem.MiddleHigh	SupportiveNegative	Reginal partnership	Pressure to increase scores, accountability	Ed. systemCentralizedDecentralized	By country	Over time
Practices	HiLo	HiLo	Teacher leavingBehavioral issues	Diverse HomogeneousNeeds	UrbanSuburbanRural	Elem.MiddleHigh	SupportiveNegative	Reginal partnership	Pressure to increase scores, accountability	Ed. systemCentralizedDecentralized	By country	Beginning, next, final stage

Table 3

Definition of success by country.

SuccessIndicators	Australia	Cyprus	Israel	New Zealand	Norway	Spain	Sweden	UK	US
1. Student Outcomes
Academic achievement, growth, % to college and up	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Student social and emotional development, empowered engagement, leadership, taking extracurricular courses	✓	✓			✓				✓
Enrollment up/dropouts down	✓		✓		✓	✓			✓
2. School Environment
Supportive, positive, caring, learning environment, sense of community	✓	✓			✓	✓	✓		✓
Student bonds, good teacher–student relationships	✓	✓	✓		✓
Disciplinary climate improved (e.g., attendance up, absence down, incidents down, student respect)	✓	✓	✓		✓	✓	✓		✓
Inclusive for minority students, democratic, reduced racism, multicultural					✓		✓
3. Instructional Capacity
High-level professional learning	✓								✓
High-quality teachers						✓
Low staff turnover	✓
High motivation, committed, trust	✓				✓
Innovative curriculum/program				✓		✓	✓		✓
Collegial, friendship, cordiality, collaboration					✓	✓
4. Community and Parent Support
Parent involvement and support	✓				✓	✓			✓
Partnering with community (e.g., local business, authority)	✓					✓			✓
5. Good Reputation/School Improvement
School and principal awards, innovative	✓		✓		✓
Good Ofsted inspection report, school ranking, improvement and turnaround								✓	✓
6. School Physical Appearance and Resources
Well tended, well resourced	✓		✓

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