Their quandary is whether to learn to carve out time to supervise and coach teachers and work with them on professional development plans that support real school improve- ment, or to risk leading a disaffected, low-performing school community" (p. 1). In addi- tion, principals' responsibility for improvement is typically not matched by authority in critical areas such as personnel and budgets (Johnston, 2000). As a result, principals experience intense job stress, excessive time requirements, difficulty in satisfying par- ents and community members, and social problems that make it difficult to focus on instructional leadership, Leadership for Student Learning: Reinventing the Principalship (IEL, 2000) reports.observes (2000).