From aspiration to reality: a qualitative exploration of novice primary principalship in the Republic of Ireland

Abstract

This paper investigates the transition into principalship in Irish primary schools, focusing on how novice leaders navigate the role during their first five years in post. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with fifteen principals, the analysis is framed by occupational socialisation, which conceptualises leadership development as a dynamic and contextually situated process. The study examines how anticipatory images of leadership, professional preparation, organisational contexts and shifts in personal identity intersect in shaping principals’ experiences. Findings show that anticipatory expectations, often grounded in ideals of instructional leadership, collided with organisational realities dominated by accountability and administrative workload. Professional preparation, while valued, was frequently perceived as insufficiently connected to the practical and relational demands of the role. Organisational and personal socialisation were marked by isolation, identity rupture and the strain of individualised responsibility, revealing the contradictions between policy discourse on distributed leadership and its limited enactment in practice. The paper advances understanding of novice principalship by illustrating how socialisation is experienced as iterative, relational and contested, rather than linear. In doing so, it contributes to international scholarship on school leadership by situating the Irish experience within wider debates about the complexity and sustainability of leadership.