The responsibility for the academic success of our nation's children historically has been shouldered by the school principal. In many school communities today, that accountability has been mandated by state law. The Indiana equivalent of the accountability movement sweeping the nation is Public Law 221 (P.L. 221), which makes the principal solely responsible for the continuous improvement of the schools. The time needed to accomplish the academic goals required by the new legislation, however, often is compromised by the principal's involvement in non-academic duties. Issues such as collective bargaining, control over staff development activities, and the disciplining of faculty are relatively new pressures that add greatly to the principal's job, a job that already is too demanding and stressful. With the addition of the new legal requirement, managing stress will become a larger part of the principal's everyday duties if he or she is to remain healthy and productive. Leadership is an essential ingredient in how well principals cope with their responsibilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between principals' leadership behavior and their on-the-job stress. Stress has been identified as one of the most serious barriers to entering the principalship (Malone, Sharp, and Thompson 2000). Combined with a dearth of qualified candidates and projected shortages in applicants for principal positions through 2008, a thorough understanding of this situation is crucial to the long-term survival of U.S. public schools. A secondary purpose of this study was to investigate differences in leadership style between men and women in the principalship. Job experience, school size, and gender were used as variables to analyze data collected from high school principals in Indiana. Responses from 162 of 239 principals of high schools housing grades 9 through 12 were analyzed. No significant patterns of leadership behavior were linked to the two types ofstress that were investigated, and leadership behavior did not differ significantly by gender. (Contains 12 tables.)