Book excerpt: The job of school leader has become progressively more demanding. The role includes increasingly complex problems to be solved and increasingly deep piles of paperwork to complete. Unfortunately, the managing of employees, the preparing and justifying of resource – both personnel and financial - projections, and the complexities involved in operating facilities safely and legally are the most frequently mentioned reasons for why school leaders begin to question their career choice. And, while faculties and colleges of education as well as principals’ professional associations offer courses and workshops, very few adequately address the gaps that exist between theory and practice in a way that would mitigate this reticence to lead in this climate. A Principled Guide to Managing and Leading School Operations fills a gap in the training of educational leaders by orienting them to the vitally important business operations required to run a school. This book therefore is for all school leaders who wish they had been given a school operations field manual, and it is for those who prepare them who might wish to rebalance anew the current propensity of principal preparation programs that blindly privilege leadership identity over developing the requisite management acumen teachers, parents and the public expect.