Principals have been identified as key actors for students’ performance. Accordingly, how leaders affect classroom activities has also emerged as a research field. One basic argument is that principals should focus on activities that can affect students’ learning outcomes. In particular, they should develop their instructional leadership, close to the core activities of teaching. However, schooling does not only consist of classroom activities – students, teachers and other professionals spend a lot of time in school long after the bell has rung. In this chapter we explore the potential benefits of considering schools not only as places for knowledge production towards academic achievement, but as a whole study environment that includes multiple spheres of activity and learning. We argue that, while the inner sphere is given a lot of leadership attention, there are several reasons for principals to also discover what we call the outer and middle spheres of schools and education. We consider the complexity of the local school context as the fundamental but forgotten, or unexplored, aspect of school leadership.