The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative study was to investigate the teacher's perceptions of their principals performing as rural instructional leaders in Alabama school systems based on the gender of the principal, years of acquaintance with the principal, and teachers' work experience. Influential instructional leaders practice leadership skills aligned with Dr. Phillip Hallinger's conceptual instructional leadership framework. Participants of this study included forty-eight educators of rural school districts identified as districts A, B, and C in Alabama. These teachers completed a Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS) questionnaire via email with an anonymous link to gain data on their perceptions of instructional leaders. The PIMRS has a reliability of 0.80, based on content, construct, and discriminant validity. The Mann-Whitney "U" and Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric tests set at a level of 0.05 analyzed data due to unequal sample sizes for the analyzed independent variables. The Mann-Whitney "U" and Kruskal-Wallis tests also analyzed the three research questions, which determined no significant differences between the sample subgroups' perceptions of their principal performing as an instructional leader. The sample was grouped according to the gender of the principal, years of acquaintance with the principal, and years of working experience. Participating rural teachers ranked their principals acting as instructional leaders with "1" (always) on a Likert scale ranging from (1) always, (2) most of the time, (3) about half of the time, (4) sometimes, to (5) never. No significant differences existed in the data according to the gender of the principal, years of acquaintance with the principal, and years of working experience of rural teachers. Most teachers perceived their principals as practicing instructional leadership "always." It is important to note that experienced teachers with few years of acquaintance with their principal imply that a high principal turnover may occur in the studied school districts. Research has revealed that the task of rural administrators has proven to be tedious and challenging. However, research suggests that rural school leaders have grit, like their teachers. Impactive instructional leadership, implemented "always," produces student success. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]