Unstructured interviews conducted in 1977 with eight respected elementary and secondary school principals revealed their conceptions of the principal's role and of the skills and activities that had gone into their efforts to fill that role. The eight principals are identified in terms of their outstanding characteristics, as revealed through analysis of their comments: the Organizer, the Value-Based Juggler, the Authentic Helper, the Broker, the Humanist, the Catalyst, the Rationalist, and the Politician. The book first explores how the principals' words and actions reveal their administrative attitudes and concepts of educational leadership, then draws inferences concerning effective leadership in several areas. A postinterview discussion session among six of the principals is described, and the elements of a theory of leadership are suggested. The book then provides supplementary material based on follow-up discussions held in 1984 with seven of the eight interviewees. These conversations focused on the impact of passing time on the attitudes and perceptions of the subjects, only four of whom were still principals. The book concludes with comments on the value dilemmas faced by principals and on how future study of the principalship might be organized. (PGD)