Over the past decades, ICT have become a part of virtually all aspects of our professional and private lives (OECD, 2016; Voogt et al., 2018). Yet, research into ICT in schools is often focused on the classroom, missing the organizational perspective. Furthermore, insights into professional development needs revolving around ICT for the leadership and management of a school are sparse. In an exploratory study, we analyzed how principals use ICT and view it as a factor relative to leadership and improvement. Our theoretical framework is rooted in current models of school improvement and educational leadership (Dalin, 1998; Fullan, 2008; Harris et al., 2013), coupled with the notion of ICT. It consists of the following dimensions organizational development, improvement of classroom instruction, staff development, communication and technological improvements. For this study, 12 school principals were interviewed, using guided, semi-structured interviews. Interviews revolved around the use of ICT to manage and lead schools and to innovate in schools. To go beyond the often-used limited perspective of reducing ICT in schools to the classroom level, the organizational level as perspective was made explicit during the interview process. All interview data was then coded in a process derived from grounded theory (Creswell & Creswell, 2018; Mayring, 2015) in repeated iterative passes in a deductive and inductive manner using MAXQDA for a more interpretive yet systematic coding approach (Saillard, 2011). The results indicate that ICT play a role in almost all aspects of the professional lives of principals, but also that there is no systematic formal ICT training. Correspondingly, two of the overarching main challenges reported by principals were the depth of their ICT-related competencies as well as that of their staff. While there are some teachers and school principals that are well-versed in matters of ICT, this is not universally the case. However, a less-than-professional state can also be seen on the side of the software available: technical solutions and platforms often cover only specific domains but a “big solution” that encompasses all facets of school is not available. For example, teachers can input grades into the backend of the learning platform to document and track student performances. However, this platform is not connected to the software used to make the official end-of-school year certificates.

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