This paper explores what, from school principals' perspectives, constitutes leadership for coping with and adapting to policy change within deprived school contexts. Using qualitative interpretive research, we drew from the practices of five principals that were purposively selected from a broader study, which focused on school principals' leadership in the changing education system within the rural context. The study included principals, heads of department, teachers and parents. The five principals selected for this paper were renowned for their positive image and their schools' success. From their stories we deduced three conclusions, which are important for theorising successful leadership for change in the deprived school context within a developing world. The findings suggest that principals' utilised creative and innovative ways to adapt and cope with change. Learning from their practices, this paper makes three important conclusions about leadership for coping with and adapting to change in the deprived context. We conclude that leadership practices are not fixed, but are fluid, and evolving, where leadership is not about compliance, but is about one's ability to identify what works at a given context. Leadership is also about being aware of the societal needs.