This article introduces the reader to the Essential Leadership Model (ELM). The ELM
provides a vocabulary and framework for clarifying and prioritizing the many complex and
competing demands of the principalship. The ELM supports principals in identifying the
critical needs of a school and the leadership knowledge, skills, and dispositions to meet
these needs. The model assumes an order of operations that effective principals employ to
create the preconditions or structures that facilitate the work necessary for meaningful
school improvement.
When a school principal fails, it comes at great social cost to the school's students and
families, at significant economic and often political cost to the school district, and at
an extreme personal cost to the principal. A failed principalship destabilizes the school
and often disrupts the school district and community. Furthermore, early-career principals
who are unsuccessful are frequently lost to the profession forever. Yet principals do fail
and at alarming rates; studies indicate as many as one out of three in California (Davis,
1997) and one out of five in Washington State (Knuth, 2004b). In a study conducted by
Coutts (1997), 56.8% of Indiana's 283 superintendents described principals that they had
"recently removed." A 2001 national survey of school superintendents conducted by Public
Agenda found that 48% of respondents voiced dissatisfaction with their current principals'
job performance; 7% communicated extreme dissatisfaction (Farkas, Johnson, Duffet, Foleno,
& Foley, 2001). How can so many principals fail when all involved parties have such a
vested interest in the principal's success? As a lead professor in a university-based
principal preparation program and as a school district superintendent, this is the question
that we asked. Our experience and study have led us to conclude that the success rate of
principals can be improved with intentional application of a practical framework that
establishes a common language for effective school leadership, that makes explicit an order
of operations for prioritizing leadership tasks, and that assists practitioners in
balancing and integrating the diverse critical dimensions of effective school leadership.
In many states, many preemployment and in-service professional development programs for
principals are designed around the six Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium
(ISLLC) Standards (Council of Chief State School Officers, 1996) (see Table 1). The ISLLC
Standards represent significant progress toward capturing the current complexity of the
principalship and use recent educational research to create a guiding structure for
principal professional development (Murphy, Yff, & Shipman, 2000; Van Meter & McMinn,
2001). However, although the ISLLC Standards define important performance dimensions of the
principal's role, they are intentionally not listed in any order of importance; it is
implicit that to be effective, a principal demonstrates at least baseline proficiency in
each standard.
The complexity of balancing and integrating six dimensions of effective leadership in such
a way that practitioners can understand and apply them is illustrated by the long struggle
to reconcile just two dimensions: management and instructional leadership. Prior to 25
years ago, principal training programs heavily emphasized management and business
techniques. In the past 25 years, the principal's key role has been redefined as
instructional leader (Brookover & Lezotte, 1979; Cotton, 2000, 2003; Edmunds 1979; Goodlad,
1979, 1984; Marzano, 2003; Sergiovanni 1992, 1994). Today, both aspects of school
leadership are represented in the ISLLC Standards: instructional leadership in Standard 2
and management in Standard 3, and the management versus leadership debate has been laid to
rest. In the words of Fullan (2001): "I have never been fond of distinguishing between
leadership and management; they overlap and [principals] need both qualities" (p. 2).
In fact, all six ISLLC Standards are presented as essential and overlapping. As a result,
many principals are at a loss as to where to begin. They are left wondering, "Are all
dimensions of effective leadership represented by the ISLLC Standards of equal importance?
Are we to work in all the leadership domains all the time?" There is evidence to suggest
that practitioners do not view all ISSLC Standards as being of equal importance. McCown,
Arnold, Miles, and Hargadine (2000) found that Missouri superintendents view Standards 5
(integrity, fairness, and ethics) and 2 (school culture and instructional program) as
substantially more important than Standard 6 (political, social, economic, legal, and
cultural context). Knuth (2004a) found that Washington State superintendents harbor an
identical view. In Indiana, both principals and superintendents rated Standard 5
(integrity, fairness, and ethics) as most important of the six ISLLC Standards (Cox, 2003).
Still, even though all six of the ISLLC Standards may not be equally important, they are
all essential.
