The greater the expectations from schools for effectiveness and improved achievements, the roles of midlevel managers take on greater significance. At the same time, historical, political, and social factors contribute to broad and varying definitions of midlevel managers and their contribution to students’ achievements. The aim of the present study is to understand who these midlevel managers are, how they are selected for their positions, and how they contribute to students’ achievements.

It has been found that most of the principal’s influence is indirect and stems from high expectations, teamwork, and a well-designed learning environment (Bryk et al., 2010; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003; Tubin, 2011). However, the path of this indirect influence between the principal and students’ achievements is still unclear. One possible answer is distributed leadership.

The advocates of distributed leadership claim that by utilizing leadership energy throughout the school staff, the principal shares the school vision while avoiding the shortcomings of the formal structure. Assuming that formal structure tends to block leadership influences due to rigid hierarchy and narrow role definitions, distributed leadership is expected to enhance collaboration, egalitarianism and trust, and better address the complexity of the school in its turbulent environment (Harris, 2008). In this paper we suggest that under certain conditions, formal midlevel positions can serve as an effective and necessary link between the principal and students’ achievements. Following Mintzberg (1979, p.2) who states that “The structure of an organization can be defined simply as the sum total of the ways in which it divides its labor into distinct tasks and then achieves coordination among them”, we suggest that for distributing leadership, the principal needs to formally restructure the management team by developing agreed role definitions, a clear hierarchy, and open channels of communication.

Midlevel positions, however, present some ambiguity. For example, the multiple titles accorded to this group in the educational literature, such as “teacher leadership”, “mid-level managers”, “middle leadership”, “leadership team”, “senior management team”, and so forth. Additionally, the roles included in midlevel management, such as head of department, departmental chair, assistant principal, deputy principal, subject leaders, and grade-level leaders, largely depend on context and the school system’s regulations. Finally, the prerequisite requirements for these roles, such as recruitment sources (within or outside the school), ways of appointment and nomination, and the matter of tenure and promotion, are broadly diverse.

It is also not clear how midlevel managers contribute to school success. If students’ achievements, socially and academically, largely depend on the teachers (McKinsey, 2007), how can other high-ranking teachers help? Furthermore, if the principal has to lead each teacher, why not distribute the leadership down the chain of command? Organizational learning theory (Argyris & Schon, 1996) provides some of the answers. According to this theory, an organization learns when lessons learned by its members become the property of the organization and are implemented in organizational routines. For this to happen in a school, the principal and midlevel managers, that have the formal authority to allocate sanctions and rewards, have to coordinate the multiple practices and innovative ideas that teachers have toward the school’s goals. To study these ideas we explored three research questions: Who are the midlevel managers? How does the principal develop such a team? How do the midlevel managers contribute to the advancement of students’ achievements?

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