I. Introduction

This practicum is about school leadership and its massive influence on the success of a school design. My aim is to seek out methods that would increase the quantity of strong leaders within a for-profit education organization in Shanghai, China called Shanghai United International Schools (SUIS). If strong leadership were to become easier to find or develop, it would lead SUIS towards successful continuous development.

A strong leader is one that is charismatic and able to rally students and teachers to their plans. For an international private school such as SUIS, strong leaders must possess the requisite blend of education and operational practice; adhere to the organization’s school design; and accept responsibility for meeting academic and financial goals. Such leaders are difficult to find and develop.

This practicum will therefore study how SUIS finds and develops its principals, and how these processes can be improved. To be included in the research are how the school identifies and recruits potential candidates for school leader positions, how principals are trained and developed, and how principals are evaluated and appraised.

By the end of this practicum, it is hoped that some new insight can be developed and applied to SUIS’s leadership recruitment, training, and evaluation methods.