It's a long way to the top: Informing leadership development programs for aspiring principals

A major challenge for education in Australia in the short to mid-term is the recruitment of sufficient capable principals to meet the anticipated levels of demand due to the ageing of the current cohort of school leaders. The literature identifies a group of significant disincentives to applying for principalship that originate from personal, experiential and systemic causes. Leadership development programs need to attend to these disincentives and to find ways of responding which will address the perceived barriers to taking up the principalship. Through a review of recent literature, this article identifies the processes that underpin the decision to take on principalship and the factors influencing the decision to apply for principalship. These factors are grouped into three categories: those relating specifically to the potential principal; those relating to the school and/or system and its processes and procedures; and those that exist in the wider community. The article then explores the implications of these factors for leadership development programs.