This article examines the question of how the school supervisory board fulfils its leadership role in relation to its subordinate schools. The results from a standardized survey and guideline-based interviews of school supervisory staff, which were obtained in an exploratory study in four federal states with different school supervisory organizations, point to the importance of transformational, participative and consultative leadership, as well as elements of transactional leadership.

Keywords
school supervision, leadership, empirical study