How School Leaders Improve the Learning of Their Students:
Results of a 25-Year Research Program
Kenneth Leithwood, Jingping Sun, and Lawrence Kohn
Forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, Fall 2026
About the Book
How School Leaders Improve the Learning of Their Students: Results of a 25-Year Research Program brings together more than 25 years of research on how successful school leaders contribute to student engagement and learning through their school improvement efforts.
The book examines what successful leaders do, the personal resources they bring to their work, how they think through complex problems, and the conditions through which leadership influences student learning. It also explores peer leadership networks, strong districts, distributed leadership, and the practical challenge of helping leaders diagnose the conditions in their schools and translate that understanding into action.
What 25 Years of Research Tells Us
1. Leadership matters, but its influence is largely indirect.
School leaders influence student learning primarily by shaping the conditions in which teaching, learning, collaboration, and improvement occur. The book organizes these conditions through the Rational, Emotions, Organizational, and Family Paths.
2. Successful leadership is more than a set of practices.
The research identifies what successful leaders do, but also emphasizes the social, psychological, ethical, and cognitive resources that enable leaders to use those practices effectively.
3. How leaders think matters.
Expert leaders spend more time understanding complex problems before acting, connect immediate challenges to the broader purposes of the school, anticipate constraints, and adapt more flexibly when conditions change.
4. Improvement depends on identifying the right conditions to strengthen.
The research argues that leaders should not try to improve everything at once. Greater progress comes from diagnosing the conditions most likely to influence student success and concentrating attention on a small number of priorities.
5. Leadership extends beyond the individual principal.
Peer networks, district leadership, and distributed leadership all shape the environment in which school improvement occurs. The research distinguishes productive forms of these arrangements from those that simply disperse activity without sufficient alignment.
6. Research becomes most useful when leaders can diagnose and act.
The concluding work moves from knowing the research to using evidence to diagnose conditions, interpret what those conditions mean, identify priorities, act, and monitor whether leadership actions are changing the environment for teaching and learning.
Key Ideas for School Leaders
1. Diagnose before acting.
Complex leadership problems are rarely solved well by jumping immediately to a familiar solution. Expert leaders spend more time interpreting the problem, understanding its context, and clarifying what they are trying to accomplish before deciding what to do.
2. Look beneath outcomes to the conditions producing them.
Student results tell leaders what happened, while the conditions surrounding teaching and learning help explain why. Examining those conditions gives leaders an opportunity to intervene earlier and with greater precision.
3. Focus leadership attention where it can have the greatest influence. The Four Paths framework helps leaders identify conditions in the Rational, Emotions, Organizational, and Family domains that affect student success and are open to leadership influence. The goal is to identify a small number of high-leverage priorities.
4. Develop the leader, not just the leadership practice.
Knowing what successful leaders do is necessary but insufficient. Effective leadership also depends on the social, psychological, ethical, and cognitive resources leaders bring to their work, particularly when they face uncertainty, pressure, and complex problems.
5. Treat improvement as an ongoing cycle of evidence, interpretation, action, and learning.
Effective leaders repeatedly examine evidence, interpret what it suggests about their schools, select focused actions, and monitor whether those actions are changing the conditions for teaching and learning.
From Research to Practice
The final chapter of the book focuses on how research about successful school leadership can be translated into practical leadership development. Drawing on the Leadership Partners Executive Education Academy at Rice University, it shows how leaders can move beyond simply knowing the research to using evidence to understand their schools more precisely and make better-informed leadership decisions.
The process begins with diagnosis. Leaders examine the conditions surrounding teaching, learning, collaboration, trust, instructional time, and other aspects of school life that influence student success. They then interpret what the evidence suggests, identify a small number of priorities, select leadership actions that are responsive to those conditions, and monitor whether those actions are producing meaningful change.
The larger goal is to strengthen leadership judgment. Rather than reacting primarily to surface-level outcomes, leaders learn to identify the conditions producing those outcomes and to use evidence as part of an ongoing cycle of interpretation, action, and learning.
About the Authors
Kenneth Leithwood is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and an Honorary Professor at University College London and the University of Nottingham. His research has focused extensively on successful school leadership, educational change, leadership development, and the ways school and district leaders influence teaching and student learning.
Dr. Leithwood is a recipient of UCEA’s Roald F. Campbell Lifetime Achievement Award and is widely recognized as one of the most highly cited scholars in educational leadership and administration. Across several decades of research, his work has helped shape leadership theory, policy, and practice internationally.
Jingping Sun is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies at the University of Alabama’s College of Education. Her research focuses on educational leadership, school improvement, leadership development, policy evaluation, and research synthesis. Before joining the University of Alabama, she worked in the Leadership Development Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Education, supporting the development of principals, superintendents, and regional leaders across the province.
Dr. Sun has published extensively on successful school leadership, data-informed leadership, and the pathways through which school leaders influence student achievement. She is co-editor, with Kenneth Leithwood and Katina Pollock, of How School Leaders Contribute to Student Success: The Four Paths and serves on the Steering Committee of the International Successful School Principalship Project.
Lawrence Kohn is Founding Partner and CEO of Leadership Partners, where his work focuses on leadership development, executive coaching, assessment, and school improvement. He previously served as Director of Programs and Evaluation for the Rice Education Entrepreneurship Program, collaborating with Executive Education in Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business to design and deliver leadership development for school leaders.
Dr. Kohn teaches in Rice University’s Master of Arts in Teaching program and has also taught doctoral courses in education at the University of Houston. His K-12 experience includes serving as the founding principal of Atascocita High School, principal of Quest High School, and an English teacher. His work bridges research and practice, particularly in leadership development, assessment, professional learning, and school redesign.
Publication and Availability
How School Leaders Improve the Learning of Their Students: Results of a 25-Year Research Program is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in Fall 2026.
The online edition will be released first, with print editions to follow. Purchase links and additional publication information will be added here as they become available.
