Principals and school management teams are expected to provide unwavering leadership and professional and sustainable support to create opportunities for teachers and themselves to develop professionally. Currently, the lack of teacher content knowledge, low rates of motivation and accountability are key challenges resulting in the low-quality education systems in South Africa. Management teams perceive their roles to be managerial and administrative and detracts from leading teaching and learning and curriculum coverage. Furthermore, there are few systems to hold principals and teachers accountable for the academic performance of learners. This makes school leadership's role inimitable with regard to creating a learning environment for teachers where they realise the value professional development has for the effective management of schools as well as improved learner performance. Fullan's (2002) theory: "leadership in a culture of change" purports that school leadership has the responsibility to transform schools through collaborative efforts, working towards creating change as education evolves preparing for 21st century teaching and learning. This interpretive, qualitative study explores how principals and school management teams lead professional development in public schools in order to improve learner performance. Two principals and their management teams were purposively sampled. Data was collected through semi-structured and focus group interviews and was inductively analysed. The results show evidence of the importance of school leadership understanding the value of managing and leading development in order to attain organisational goals. Continuously capacitating teachers improved teaching and learning and ultimately improved learner performance.