This paper seeks a deeper understanding of how principals strive for instructional leadership with organisational management strategies in China today. Drawing from 116 interviews of district supervisors and school principals from two regions, we first conduct qualitative analysis to map the dimensions and sub-dimensions of Chinese principal practices inductively, then compare them with extant conceptual frameworks designed to capture instructional leadership, learner-centred leadership, and organisational management. We find that the Chinese principal leadership conception and the Western frameworks converge on important aspects that cover curriculum, instruction, teacher professional development, and school climate. We also find that to reach instructional leadership effectiveness, Chinese school leaders use a distinctive set of management tactics that prioritise building tiered organisational structures, developing teacher leadership, responding to top-down mandates, and leveraging external networks. Our study contributes to the cross-cultural research of school leadership under different and dynamic social, political, and cultural conditions.