Abstract
During the past ten years first explorations to adapt PLCs to school leaders (school heads) have been successfully run in some US-American school districts. In a European project School Leaders-PLCs (SL-PLCs) were also set up, facilitated, and evaluated. In Germany, additional data were collected to inquire about the motivation of the school leaders to participate in a SL-PLC, milestones of the establishment, and conditional and constituent factors of the SL-PLCs. By Grounded Theory Methodology we developed a model for the establishment of SL-PLCs. It is the interaction of continuous investment of the PLC members and the assurance of constant benefit that secures the establishment as much as the raising liability in the cooperation and a jointly growing understanding of how PLCs work. We found it is mainly the positive attitude to innovation and the interest to forward school development that motivates the school leaders the engagement in the SL-PLC. We will present the model and point out how this adaptation of PLCs to leadership development has the potential to serve innovation in schools.