Leadership gained a lot of attention during the past decades because of school principals' growing responsibilities and the accountability-driven context they work in. However, reviews providing a general overview of effective school leadership theories and effective professional development are rare. The present review was conducted to summarise the existing literature and discover lacunae in school leadership research in preschools, primary and secondary schools. 75 studies focusing on leadership theories, characteristics of effective school leadership and school leaders' professional development were included and analysed. The present article provides an overview of main leadership theories such as instructional leadership, situational leadership, transformational leadership, distributed leadership and Leadership for Learning. Second, the article focuses on the characteristics of effective school leadership and lastly, the review offers features of effective professional development activities for school principals.

Research considering the effects of leadership training and development is underresearched. However, leadership behaviour can generate greater levels of performance and satisfaction. In this study, the effect of a group reflective learning programme for school leaders is examined. The study questions whether leadership development, using a group reflective learning programme that focuses on coaching skills, can influence teacher perceptions of the organizational learning climate. Gaining a deeper insight in factors influencing organizational learning climate is important because organizational learning climate is associated with job motivation, job satisfaction, positive working conditions and the optimizing of training outcomes. Hence, a positive organizational learning climate can contribute to organizational performance, in the case of primary education delivering quality education to pupils. Based on a sample of 289 teachers, it turned out that school leaders’ participation in the group reflective learning programme resulted in a significant increase of teachers’ perceptions of the organizational learning climate. The results are inspiring for scholars, policy makers and practitioners.

Throughout the past decades, the profession of school leader has become more complex. To deal with these increasing complexities and the challenges school leaders encounter, it is important that school leaders are provided with effective professional development. However, research on school leaders' learning and professional development, and especially on school leaders' group reflective learning, is still rather limited. Based on findings of a few previous studies considering school leaders' professional development, a group reflective learning programme was developed. The current qualitative study unravels school leaders' reactions with regard to group reflective learning programmes through interviewing the 19 participants of the programme.The study of the school leaders' reactions shows that school leaders set particular preconditions for group reflective learning, that they value recognition and support of fellow school leaders, and that they appreciate the programme because they were able to learn from their own, and their fellow school leaders' daily-life experiences. Group reflective programmes have the potential to develop knowledge, skills and/or attitudes and seem to satisfy the statement that school leaders need to be provided with appropriate professional development programmes to prevent job related psychological issues.