The main purpose of the conducted research was to define and to describe the school principals’ way of thinking about teaching and learning and in consequence about leadership for education. It is important to recognize and take under consideration, during the process of policy making, the diversity of possible perspectives owned by head teachers.

For the purpose of the research project the working hypotheses were established:

-       School principals present diverse ideological and theoretical approaches towards education

-       School principals present diverse ideological and theoretical approaches towards leadership

-       There is correlation between thinking about education and leadership (approaches)

Building framework for research it was assumed that four general approaches to education and four leadership paradigms might be defined.

Education:

1/ education as promotion of accepted norms and rules (accordingly to accessible knowledge), in this perspective the main task of the school is helping students to reach the desired model,

2/ education as socialization tool, where the main task of the school is preparing students for life in society and developing social identity,

3/ education as mechanism of individual development, where school organize dialogue and show respect to every student,

4/ education as a mechanism of change and social re construction, school is a place for social innovations.

Leadership:

1/ classic paradigm (domination of the significant person or elite group),

2/ transactional paradigm (influence and negotiations),

3/ visionary paradigm (called sometimes charismatic where the most import ant is clear vision),

4/ organic paradigm (existing in multicultural and diverse world where leadership is flexible and leaders change dependently on a situation)

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