Recruitment, Leadership, Performance, and Appreciation: Examining School Principals’ Professional Development Programs

This study was aimed at examining principals’ empowerment program implementation, conducted by a human resources development agency (BPSDM), Jakarta Capital City, Indonesia. The study focused on exploring certain aspects of the program such as recruitment, leadership, performance, and appreciation. A qualitative approach was employed, and the data was collected through focused group discussions (FGDs), interviews, and document studies, after which qualitative analytical triangulation was employed. Research findings suggest the following: (1) technological integration scarcity in the recruitment pattern of principals’ empowerment training participants even though rules compliance had been satisfied from the regional to the central government level and program supervisions were on need-based settings, (2) the principal training programs were merely on situational leadership owing to time restrictions and content coverage considerations, (3) the instructors performed “Good” on average in terms of training methods and strategies, participants’ performance, as well as participants’ post-training improvement; (4) reward-giving pattern was considered appropriate to further the principals’ professional development. The question of whether this mode of principals’ professional development program, which employs situational leadership, is an advantage for even, authentic, and continual principals’ professional development programs still needs further clarity.