Teaching principals are school leaders with responsibilities in three main areas – school administrative leader, instructional leader, and teacher. Key findings of a qualitative case study of K-12 teaching principals in rural Alberta, Canada, revealed that teaching principals have a complex workload with responsibilities and duties in the three roles. While the participants in this study were found to build strong relationships with staff and students, teaching strengthened trust and credibility with staff and students through role modelling as well as mentorship. The principals with an additional teaching load created boundaries to save time and help support them in their daily work. Additionally, it was also found that shrinking school budgets continued to decrease each year and the teaching principals in this study absorbed the reduced funding within their role, thereby, increasing their workload. Enjoyment of teaching and the ability to have more collegial, informal conversations with teachers further strengthened and positively impacted the instructional leadership role of the leaders and flattened the hierarchy of the school for the teaching principals in this study.
