The need for empirical research on leadership in educational organizations across more diverse national settings frames the purpose of the current study of principal leadership in Vietnam. To date, the international literature on school leadership in Vietnam is virtually a blank slate. This research aimed at describing how Vietnamese school principals enact their leadership roles and analysing how the observed patterns of leadership practice are shaped by the Vietnamese context. In this study, we frame the "context of school leadership" in Vietnam in terms of Confucian sociocultural values of the Vietnamese society and the institutional-political structures within which education is delivered. The study employed phenomenological research methods in a multi-site case study design. Qualitative methods of interview, observation and document analysis were employed to generate a thick description of how principal leadership was enacted in three schools in Vietnam. The study found that in this context, effective school leadership integrated elements associated with strong autocratic and moral leadership. The paper proposes a model of có uy leadership which is understood to describe a leadership style that responds to the context of the education system in Vietnam.