In its revised sixth edition,The Principalship continues to emphasize school culture, standards, and building community, while also providing a moral basis for leadership as a means of navigating contextual issues and constraints that principals routinely face. Studying The Principalship, future principals will explore in-depth the array of decisions that they will be confronted with and how those decisions will affect students, teachers, and school policy.

Extensively updated, the new edition emphasizes diversity as a part of community building; the importance of instructional and shared leadership; and the building of communities of practice, while the book's trademark concentration on reflective practice is maintained throughout the text. The sixth edition also contains a new Some Reflections feature that appears in most chapters and that offers students a chance for further critical thinking and enriched class discussions.