This research aims to identify the competencies of school principals based on Iranian studies for effective leadership in schools. Therefore, this research has been developed using a qualitative method and using meta-synthesis strategy. Therefore, after checking the keywords of managers' competence in internal databases, 150 types of research were extracted from 2005 to 2020, and finally, 70 types of research were included in the final analysis. The results included 19 primary pre-organizer themes and six secondary pre-organizer themes. Secondary pre-organizer themes include; Individual competencies (with primary pre-organizer themes: personal, professional, and functional), interactive competencies (with primary pre-organizer themes: intra-organizational interactions, extra-organizational interactions, and team building and teamwork), job competencies (with primary pre-organizer themes: career development, human resource management, and job recognition), organizational competencies (with primary pre-organizer themes: leadership, managerial-executive, soft capacity making, organizational effectiveness, and organizational quality), technical-specialized competencies (with primary pre-organizer themes: technological skills and knowledge skills), financial competencies (with primary pre-organizer themes: budgeting, financial management and planning, and financial efficiency and effectiveness). In the end, in addition to the network of themes, a competency model of school principals has also been drawn based on the results
