Teacher shortages, exacerbated and heightened by the pandemic, not only impact classrooms but have implications for the future of school leadership as well. Leadership pipelines operate to systematically identify and prepare candidates who are equipped to step into the principalship (Gates, et al, 2019). The objective of this paper is to examine the development and implementation of leadership pipelines to address shortages in the education profession, especially hard to staff schools. Leadership pipelines typically work towards alignment among seven domains: leader standards, high quality pre-service principal preparation, selective hiring and placement, on the job evaluation and support, principal supervision, leader tracking data systems, and systems and capacity to support and sustain principal pipelines. The paper is rooted in the literature on distract capacity for complex change that articulates the capacity for ongoing learning in central office settings, staffing expertise, and strategic leadership (Russell & Sabina, 2014, Farrell & Coburn, 2017; Honig, 2018). Mixed methods are used to analyze the development of leadership pipelines in a sample 60 districts across the United States who participated in an initiative to plan, develop and implement principal pipelines. We collected and analyzed survey data from 376 central office and interview data from 86 central office leaders. Findings suggest that district leaders viewed pipelines as critical for school effectiveness and school improvement, providing districts with multiple avenues to identify, hire, develop, and support future leaders. Pipelines not only included pathways for future principals, but assistant principals, teacher leaders, and others. Second, we found that many district leaders noted the importance of using pipelines as a strategy to address equity and diversity, through the recruitment and retention of leaders of color. Third, we found that a range of factors inhibited or supported the development and sustainability of leadership pipelines, such as superintendent support and stability, central office culture and structures, communication and collaboration across departments, and the larger context of a district.

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