In the world of school principals, there’s plenty of technical research out there about tactics principals can use to improve their craft and help students. But there’s often still a disconnect in their professional development, and much of it has to do with the relationship between the principal and their principal supervisor.

So when James Crawford formed his dissertation, it dealt with far more than the technical, and dealt specifically with those relationships, how trust is built, what that looks like when it occurs, what are the actions that take place, how does the professional relationship help learning? The research was good. In fact, it was award-winning.