Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to examine behaviors and attributes of visionary high school principals who have successfully turn vision into action. This study describes the biographies of five high school principals and the behaviors and attributes they used to create an environment in which a school's vision was created, articulated, inspired, implemented, assessed, and renewed in five California schools. Methodology. The methodology that was used for this replication study was descriptive case study designed to collect qualitative data. Purposive sampling was used to select the subjects of the case study. A panel of experts in the field of education chose the principals based on the following criteria: (1) ability to create and implement a vision of a desirable future state; (2) school with at least 1,500 students; (3) principal for at least three years. Five principals from San Diego and Imperial County were selected and they, along with key stakeholders from their schools, were interviewed using a questionnaire developed by Marty Butt (1993). Findings. The findings indicated that these visionary high school principals restructured the environment to facilitate collaboration and communication, encouraged teamwork and cooperation in the pursuit of data driven improvements, communicated the vision of the school frequently and effectively through words and actions, and implemented their plans with a certain degree of flexibility. Implications. High school principals who want to turn vision into action must become experts on their school environment and personnel. They must seek to increase ownership among the staff and community by developing shared responsibility for the creation and implementation of the vision. They must be passionate communicators about learning and education. Finally, they need to strike a balance between valuing people and achieving measurable results, between collaboration and authoritative decision making.