This booklet describes the rationale, design, and structure for conferences organized for school principals. Drawing on the experiences of New York City's Community School District 2, it describes standards-based professional development for school leaders. It opens with a description of the District Network for Standards-Based Reform--a project that provided four new superintendents with the example of District 2--and the instruction and support needed to host effective leadership conferences. Examples of effective activities from these districts' leadership conferences are used throughout the paper. It discusses the research-based structure of the effective standards-based leadership conference and focuses on the particular behaviors that the superintendent should be modeling during his or her design and presentation of leadership conferences. Subsections on each of those components address such topics as setting and communicating clear expectations, helping all leaders to be learners, engaging conference participants as active and cooperative learners, going to where the most informing work is being done, focusing on instruction and learning from the experts, engaging in and demanding accountable talk, and saving the administrative items for last. The paper closes with a brief conclusion that emphasizes the importance of clear expectations, communicating these expectations to principals, and focusing on instruction and standards. (Contains 11 endnotes.) (RJM)