Principal Leadership and Teacher Outcomes: A Systematic Review of Research

This paper aimed to thoroughly analyze the impact of principal leadership on teacher outcomes, drawing on a database of 153 studies published in Scopus-indexed journals over 23 years (2000–2023). Descriptive statistics were employed to highlight trends in the existing literature in terms of growth trajectory, geographic distribution, authorship trends, citation impact, article types, and methodological approaches. Then, a more thorough examination of the reviewed articles was conducted employing the content analysis method. The findings reveal a notable reluctance among scholars to explore principal leadership styles in the context of teacher-related outcomes. Transformational, distributed, and instructional leadership emerged as the predominant styles in the relevant literature. Moreover, the study identified noteworthy associations between principal leadership and teacher outcomes, such as job commitment, job satisfaction, and performance. A set of recommendations has been proposed to advance further research and to deepen our understanding of how principal leadership impacts teacher outcomes.