For quite some time the role of school leadership could not be dealt with productively because of the negative connotations of the German word ‘Führung’. Experiences of changes from a long heritage of an imperial style of administration towards leadership which meets contemporary challenges have led to closer attention of what training programmes can achieve. First evaluations of the effects of such programmes led to further interest in researching into what school leaders actually do in school after they graduate from professional development activities. Austria’s participation in international projects such as Leadership for Learning, School Leadership Improvement (OECD), Central5 (A Central European View on Competencies for School Leaders), TALIS and EPNoSL (European Network on School Leadership) has given a lift to mobilizing research potential on school leadership. They also brought the focus of diploma and doctoral theses on the topic of various issues of school leadership. Under the international regime of results-based leadership the focus has further been moved towards learning and its results. Although the national rhetoric in educational policies in Austria deals a lot with school leadership and its important role in school development, research has not received a lot of attention in informing both policies and practice.