The paper reviews the research on instructional leadership and, through identifying problems emerging in Indonesian school reform, suggests some sustainable solutions. There are some discrepancies in the processes of Indonesia's school reform, and the objectives of the national education reform do not seem to have been reflected in the actual implementation. School leadership is suggested to be a decisive factor in student attainment. There is a scarcity of research on Indonesian school reform, and this paper's study of instructional leadership emphasises the need to identify and overcome problems in order to move towards optimising student achievement. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)