This study emerged due to the introduction of the 60 per cent pass policy to increases the pass rate of the students in the secondary school completion examination in the Maldives. As an essential part of this policy, the Ministry of Education developed an action plan, in which principal leadership was recognized as one of the key factors that can contribute to pupils' academic attainment. The cases used in this study comprise the full population of teachers working in all public secondary schools in the Maldives (N = 6047). A survey questionnaire, which was based on Principal Instructional Management Scale was administered to gather data of principals' instructional leadership. Just over 81 per cent of the teachers responded to the survey. The results showed that 68 per cent of the teachers reported that principals demonstrate instructional leadership of the kind that should influence students' attainment. And the result also suggested that there is a strong relationship between principal's leadership and pupils' secondary school attainment. However, the result of the binary logistic regression revealed that factors related to individual students and the school community are the key contributing factors for higher attainment in the secondary school completion examination in the Maldives.