The role of the principal in a school is critical because a principal is not only an administrator, but also a manager, initiator of various processes and, ideally, also a school leader who furthers various processes in the school and facilitates high achievement among the students. It is therefore important to study the role of the principal and how the principal can facilitate student achievement. The aim of the research study is to carry out a comparative analysis of data from several countries to find out the factors associated with the activities of the principal (directions of professional activity, factors created by the school culture and environment) that facilitate high achievement among students. Data from a survey conducted among school principals within the IEA PIRLS 2016 study have been used for the analysis. IEA PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is a large international comparative study of the reading literacy of grade 4 students. 50 countries, including Latvia, participated in it in 2016. In the article, the data for Latvia are compared with several geographically, culturally and historically close countries, such as Denmark,