This yearlong ethnographic study of principals' leadership in Papua New Guinea high schools describes influences of imposing a bureaucratic school organization on principals' decision making in a communal society. Communal values of kinship relationships, "wantok" system, and "big men" leadership challenged principals' responsibility to uphold bureaucratic principles. Developing countries that impose Western infrastructures on traditional cultural systems may learn from the mismatch of structural processes and communal values that may distance communities from their schools.