The Swedish Principal Preparation Program and distributed leadership
Can leadership training improve student outcomes? Sweden requires all newly appointed principals to complete the National Principal Preparation Program. But how much difference does this training make - not only for individual school leaders, but for schools as organizations?
Evaluating leadership development
This project evaluates the long-term effects of Sweden's mandatory Principal Preparation Program using data from all Swedish schools between 2009 and 2021.
The researchers combine advanced statistical methods with multilevel analyses to examine whether leadership training improves student outcomes. The first study finds that training individual principals alone does not appear to produce measurable improvements in student achievement - a finding that challenges common assumptions about leadership development while aligning with results from international program evaluations.
A second study explores whether leadership training becomes more effective when it is shared across a school's leadership team. Rather than viewing leadership as an individual capability, the project examines whether the benefits depend on how many members of a leadership team have completed the training - and in what sequence.
Rethinking how leadership develops
The project shifts the focus from asking whether leadership programs work to understanding under what organizational conditions they work. Drawing on organizational psychology, team learning, and education science, it highlights leadership as a collective process rather than an individual one.
The findings provide new insights for policymakers, school organizers, and leadership educators seeking to strengthen school leadership and improve educational outcomes.
Funding: The Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU)