The principal’s role is both essential and complex. It is key to the success of students and teachers, but challenging to master. Moving toward mastery requires that principals receive high-quality professional learning throughout their careers.
But what learning opportunities do principals actually get? That was the question motivating a recent study our research team conducted with support from The Wallace Foundation (Grissom et al., 2026). For the study, we interviewed 63 principals in diverse settings across three states (Connecticut, Tennessee, and Washington) and surveyed 1,000 principals nationally to understand what principals learn on the job and how that learning happens. We focused on four leadership areas prior research linked to better student outcomes—engaging with teachers around instruction, building a strong school climate, facilitating teacher collaboration, and strategic management (Grissom et al., 2021)—along with a fifth domain, leading for more equitable learning opportunities.
After publishing our report, we reanalyzed the data to gain a better understanding of how principals’ learning shifts as they gain experience. We were especially interested in veteran principals, whose learning is often overlooked because people assume that years on the job mean they have fewer learning needs.
Several important findings emerged both from our original analysis and this updated look at the data.
Finding 1: Most Principal PD Is All About Instruction
Of the five topics we asked principals about, their learning was most frequently focused on engaging with teachers about instruction. Principals in our sample spent substantial time cultivating instructional leadership skills, such as delivering constructive feedback from observations and supporting teachers in implementing new curricula.
Unfortunately, this often meant topics like climate-building, supporting teacher collaboration, and strategic management received less attention. Learning in those areas was often left up to principals. For example, principals described having few formal opportunities to learn about strategic management activities such as how to construct a budget. Instead, principals drew on online resources or books, sought out advice from colleagues or district-level staff, or simply emulated other leaders.
Most principals engaged at least monthly with informal formats, such as conversations with peers or supervisors and learning by doing on the job.
Across the five content areas we explored, equity was the area in which principals generally received the fewest learning opportunities. However, this varied by location—formal opportunities were relatively scarce in Tennessee and tended to focus on learning disabilities or trauma-informed practices rather than race or class. Principals in Connecticut and Washington reported a more explicit equity focus in their professional learning.
Finding 2: Principals Value Informal, Unstructured Learning
In interviews, principals described engaging in numerous formal learning formats, including workshops and coaching. But they also valued informal learning opportunities, such as texting other principals for advice. Learning opportunities appeared on a spectrum from relatively formal and structured, like sessions in monthly principal meetings, to more informal and less structured, such as reading about leadership, trying out new strategies and learning from their results, and talking with other principals about persistent challenges.
Often, district leaders overlook these less structured opportunities for principal learning. That could be a mistake: our data suggest that less formal learning is not only more frequent but, according to principals, more useful. As one principal in Washington told us, their learning is “50 percent [informal] study, 30 percent talking to other people, other principals, just sending emails or texts or questions. And then 20 percent formal learning.” Less structured learning can occur day-to-day, which could help principals tackle pressing problems. As one Tennessee principal observed, “The best learning is always grounded in something that’s really going on.”
Our survey data confirmed that informal learning happened frequently. Figure 1 shows how many principals reported engaging at least monthly in nine different modes of learning. This figure focuses on learning about instructional engagement with teachers—the most common learning topic—though results for other content areas are similar. Most principals engaged at least monthly with informal formats, such as conversations with peers or supervisors, self-directed independent research (such as books or podcasts), and learning by doing on the job.
Principals also reported that informal learning was more useful than more formal opportunities. For example, 90 percent of principals rated learning by doing and informal conversations as “useful,” compared to just 44 percent for standalone trainings. Formats falling between formal and informal, like networks and mentoring, were rated as useful by about 75 percent of principals.
It is not surprising that principals often learn informally. It requires fewer resources and organizational supports for a lone principal to pursue their own learning than for a district to organize and implement formal learning opportunities. Formal learning is still significant in principal development, but the frequency and usefulness of informal learning raises the question: How can districts harness the potential of informal learning to drive improvement?
Finding 3: Formal Learning Leaves Gaps
As seen in Figure 1, principals reported fewer formal learning opportunities than informal ones. For most principals, workshops and trainings around instruction occurred less than once per month. About half of the principals surveyed participated monthly in a principal network. Just 27 percent received monthly coaching from a supervisor, and coaching from another leader was even less prevalent. Only 12 percent worked with a mentor on a monthly basis. The relative infrequency of learning opportunities offered or led by the school district meant that many principals saw less coherence in their learning than might have existed with more direction from district leadership.
For some principals, infrequent formal learning opportunities created a gap that they filled with informal learning. For example, one rural Tennessee principal noted, “There was never a lot of money to go to workshops or professional learning,” so she turned to books and other resources.
For others, having fewer formal learning opportunities meant missed opportunities for informal connections and collaborations. Workshops create spaces for hallway conversations with peers. Conference sessions reference research or resources that principals can read more about on their own time. District-run principal networks stimulate parallel informal networks among participants. One Washington principal said this informal networking was a key facet of principal meetings: “I always sit by another middle school [principal] to be like, ‘What are you guys doing? What are you working on?’”
Finding 4: Veteran Principals Have Less Access to Mentoring and Coaching
While principals across all career stages had similar experiences in some regard—such as a focus on engaging teachers around instruction and finding informal learning opportunities—some types of professional learning were noticeably less frequent among veteran principals. These principals, for example, had significantly fewer opportunities for mentoring and coaching than early-career principals. Compared to principals with 10 or fewer years of experience, veterans were 40 percent less likely to report monthly mentoring, which might be expected given that mentoring programs tend to focus on early-career leaders.
Veteran principals were also less likely to report receiving coaching from a supervisor or someone other than a supervisor. These principals missed out on the targeted support that coaching provides.
Finding 5: Veteran Principals Find Their Learning Less Relevant
On the national survey, we asked principals to rate characteristics of their learning, and veteran principals were as likely as their less experienced colleagues to say their learning was adequately differentiated, driven by their own choices, and continuous throughout the year.
However, as shown in Figure 2, their ratings of other key characteristics were significantly lower than their less experienced counterparts. Principals serving more than a decade were less likely to say their learning was relevant to their practices and tightly connected to their day-to-day work. They were also less likely to describe it as coherent and a means to connect to other leaders.
Finding 6: Veterans’ Learning Needs Shift Over Time
In interviews, several long-serving principals commented on how their learning needs had changed as their skills grew and the demands of their schools changed. Principals noted they often started out with knowledge gaps that they had worked to remedy. For example, a veteran principal in Washington said relationships among teachers and administrators in their first year felt like something from the the TV show Survivor. At the end of that year, they received poor school climate data, which resulted in additional support from their district supervisor on culture-building and setting expectations. That learning led to more successful subsequent years.
Other principals reflected on how mastering “the basics” pushed them into new growth areas. For example, a Connecticut principal described having gained command over tools to give teachers effective instructional feedback. His focus now was on how to protect his leadership team’s time to ensure feedback was happening—“buffering and creating spaces for me or for the admin team that I’m leading to get out and get into classrooms and have [the] interactions we’re supposed to be having.”
In some cases, principals’ learning progressed over multiple school years. For instance, a Tennessee principal with more than 10 years across several schools described her work with professional learning communities (PLCs). She noted that in her first principalship, “I don’t think that I was in a place [with] the training I had had . . . to even think about collaboration.” But over her first few years, she saw strong PLCs in other schools, and her district brought in an external organization to train leaders to build collaborative teams. She took initial steps to implement these teams, but with less success than she wanted, and then she changed districts.
Her new school was already organized into PLCs, but they were not operating at a high level. So she and her leadership team read books on effective PLCs. They tried new strategies, tweaked, and tried again. They saw growth. She sought out new resources to learn how to push them further. Her school was now a model, but she was still working on strategies to ensure every PLC in her school was exemplary.
Recognition of principals’ learning trajectories over their careers can help district leaders create professional learning plans for veteran principals that meet their often-nuanced learning needs.
What Districts Can Do
Before completing our work, we shared the initial results with district leaders in our three states. They agreed that they had made instruction an emphasis of principals’ learning and expressed concern that it seemed so much of principals’ learning was beyond what the district was providing: informal, unstructured, and pursued by principals themselves. They worried that principals’ reliance on informal learning meant that the district was not doing enough, or, worse, principals might be accessing information or content that was low-quality, not aligned with the district’s vision, or not targeted at the skills principals need most.
Certainly, some principals in our study wanted more from their districts, and we cannot vouch for the quality or alignment of the informal resources. But the typical principal was complimentary of their district’s learning opportunities. For many, taking ownership of much of their learning was less about a deficit in the district’s offerings than about exercising responsibility for meeting their own needs.
With that in mind, we recommend that district leaders:
1. Increase the relevance of district-sponsored learning opportunities. Principals often sought out informal opportunities to fill skill gaps they identified in their own practice. Districts that regularly gather input on principal learning needs and differentiate learning opportunities may find their principals needing less supplementary independent learning.
Districts should also consider investing in learning opportunities across leadership content areas. Instruction is important, but principals still spend much of their time on non-instructional tasks, so we encourage districts to broaden their learning opportunities to include content about equity, school climate, teacher collaboration, and strategic management, among others.
“I always sit by another middle school principal to be like, ‘What are you guys doing? What are you working on?’”
2. Support leaders in finding quality learning opportunities that match their needs. Districts cannot fill every principal learning need, but those concerned about the quality of the informal resources available to principals can curate additional outside supports. Districts can compile high-quality resources that are aligned to expectations and priorities and empower their principals to help with that curation.
Districts can also think strategically about how formal learning opportunities can provoke informal learning. One district official told us that they always assign seating for meetings to encourage principals to connect with others beyond their close colleagues. Simple means to build opportunities for future collaboration within the context of other learning can have big payoffs.
3. Attend to the needs of veteran principals. Veteran principals can always benefit from support and high-quality opportunities to grow. We encourage districts to think about how opportunities for veteran principals can be made relevant and impactful. For example, in other industries, experienced leaders work with coaches to support them in managing complex environments. Giving veteran principals access to coaching and other targeted supports can help them continue to develop their practice and perhaps extend their time in the profession.
A Long-Lasting Growth
Principals’ growth in an increasingly demanding job requires the same commitment to ensuring high-quality learning opportunities that we have for students. Principals already are seeking out these opportunities. The task for district leaders is to make those opportunities more relevant, more connective, and more attentive to how principals’ needs shift over a career. If we take it seriously, principals’ learning can be a powerful strategy for improving schools.
