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Journal of Modern Foreign Psychology
2024. Vol. 13, no. 2, 102–118
doi:10.17759/jmfp.2024130210
ISSN: 2304-4977 (online)

Psychosocial Profiling of “Successful School Principal” in Russian Metropolis

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M.K. Pavlova

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Abstract

Researchers all over the world are studying principals from different perspectives attempting to draw a successful school principal psychosocial profile. The authors used a qualitative approach which comprised focus groups with principals and deputies to unveil leadership practices and their perceptions of key characteristics essential for “a successful leader”. The study revealed five domains of the psychosocial profile of a Metropolis principal (building relationships, leading the organization, behaving in urgent or uncertain situations, school management, and school improvement). The authors highlighted similarities and differences in characteristics of a Russian Metropolis principal driven by specificity of the context while comparing with international profiles. “Successful principal” is expected to be an effective communicator and possess such personal traits as honesty, fairness, and empathy in Russia as well as in other countries. The peculiarity of the Russian Metropolis school principal profile is a focus on administering skills (operational-visionary, procedural, delegation competence) which were not identified in the international bulk of studies. Moreover, solving conflicts and being assertive are also key characteristics of the Metropolis principal.

General Information

Keywords: school principals, school leadership, psychosocial profiling, competences, Russian metropolis

Journal rubric: Educational Psychology and Pedagogical Psychology

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/jmfp.2024130210

Acknowledgements. Авторы выражают благодарность за помощь и содействие в сборе данных Н.В. Исаевой и К.С. Серегину.

Received: 02.05.2024

Accepted:

For citation: Pavlova M.K. Psychosocial Profiling of “Successful School Principal” in Russian Metropolis [Elektronnyi resurs]. Sovremennaia zarubezhnaia psikhologiia = Journal of Modern Foreign Psychology, 2024. Vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 102–118. DOI: 10.17759/jmfp.2024130210.

Full text

Introduction

The significance of constructing a psychosocial profile of personality is confirmed by various research and practices [4; 9; 11 36; 37]. A psychosocial analysis may highlight the interrelationship between the psychic and social, demonstrating an in-depth analysis of the situated nature of an individual's experiences in different job roles. This is particularly crucial in the leadership context as leaders are responsible for influencing, inspiring, intellectually stimulating, and nurturing their staff [19; 30].
When discussing the concept of a psychosocial profile it is important to note that this term is predominantly found in medical research. However, there is a growing body of studies attempting to develop psychosocial profiles of pre-service [9] and music teachers [11], students etc. The definition most aligned with our study was proposed by Roslan, Sharifah (2012) who described a psychosocial profile as a set of psychosocial characteristics, typically shaped by professionals` background and environment [41]. Additionally, the psychosocial characteristics of a leader's personality work as factors forming his communication style and management practices [17], and also shape its well-being and workability [23; 24; 34; 45].
Researchers have endeavored to create profiles of leaders across various fields [1; 6; 14; 41], but most of these studies are framed within the contexts of leadership theory or management practices [22; 31], often neglecting the psychosocial aspects of personality. Information regarding the psychosocial and emotional characteristics, viewing these traits as competences [37], is also getting special attention from companies who want not only to consider knowledge and professional background of the candidates but also possess comprehensive information [8]. A similar trend can be observed in the assessment of school principals’ psychosocial profiles that are used to evaluate future candidates for these roles [37] and prevent a global crisis of recruitment and retention of school leaders [15; 17; 43].
A school principal today is a key figure in general education responsible for building relationships among various participants in the educational process, establishing a schoolwide vision committed to high standards and the success of all students, and steering the organization towards achieving these goals [25; 35]. The preparation of a successful leader requires not only extensive knowledge but an exploration of the traits and skills that shape their psychosocial profile. Zaccaro et al. (2004) highlighted the importance of psychological attributes and advocated for a broader analysis of personality traits working together. They argued that leadership is best predicted by a mix of cognitive abilities, personality orientations, motives and values, social judgment skills, problem-solving competencies, and general and subject-specific experience [48]. Moreover, psychosocial profiling of prospective principals helps in understanding their psychological readiness for principal's role [2; 14], and facilitates the development of psychometric tools for assessing the competencies of both future and current principals [18; 28; 37].
It is important to note that psychological profiling of school principals varies within different contexts. In American and British educational leadership assessments, the focus is on the transformational and instructional aspects of leadership. Both constructs are reflected in various indicators of principals’ behavior. For instance, transformational leadership emphasizes an ability of the school leader to positively influence school climate and culture through their actions [32], requiring them to demonstrate charisma and the ability to intellectually stimulate their staff. In Indonesia the social aspect of the country demands from the principal to be not only objective, democratic, friendly, honest, disciplined, assertive, able to control emotions, appreciate, motivate, fair and strong but also religiously observant and considerate of religious peculiarities in policy implementation [44]. In South Africa, competences for school leaders include agility, communication, expressiveness, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving, and creativity [10].
Russian researchers have also attempted to profile a successful principal. However, none have specifically addressed the unique demands of the Metropolis education system which requires particular psychological traits and competencies due to the specific principals’ responsibilities [2]. The need to study Russian metropolises’ school principals separately has been emphasized in other studies [3; 33]. Nevertheless, the existing research on Metropolis school leaders’ profile mostly focuses on leadership practices and decision-making styles of principals [3; 33].
Thus, this study aims to profile a Russian Metropolis school principal defining their psychosocial characteristics and examining them in the context of international experience. In fact, creating a distinct psychosocial profile of a Russian Metropolis principal is crucial as it reflects a unique context with a centralized system where school principals manage large educational complexes. The findings of this research can be utilized to develop various assessment tools for measuring the competencies of Metropolis school principals and comparing their profiles with international views. Additionally, they provide a foundation for enhancing school leadership practices that contribute to overall school performance and give some possible explanation why some current principals can leave or do not effectively enough do their job [43].

Literature review

Researchers all over the world have been attempting to establish a successful school leadership profile using various approaches over the years [10; 21; 26; 27; 38]. The bulk of studies portraying leadership profiles is based on the analysis of “successful” leadership practices [21; 26; 27]. The characteristics defining “a successful principal” often include instructional, transformational, distributed leadership. Kilag et al. (2023) propose that a school leader should be an effective communicator as it is crucial for a principal to build relations inside and outside the school [16]. Strategic planning, problem-solving and decision-making, motivation and proficiency are other characteristics highlighted by the authors [16]. Similarly, Gurr (2015) draws the profile on the theories of instructional and transformational leadership, but also highlights personal traits essential for a successful school principal, such as trustworthiness, honesty, heroism, empathy, openness etc. [27].
Significant research has also been focused on analyzing principals' reflections and perceptions of what constitutes leadership and their professional development needs [29; 38]. In this way, Aydin et al. (2021) identified the skills school principals stated they need to develop (leadership, problem solving, empathetic communication etc.) [38]. Kara and Ertürk (2015) profiled school leaders comprising personality traits (honesty, fairness, trustworthiness etc.), behavioral characteristics (innovativeness, taking risks, solution-oriented etc.), skills (communication, management, empathy skills etc.), physical characteristics (charismatic) [29].
A vast array of research is focused on the competences required for school leaders to ensure quality education and school improvement [10; 12]. Thus, recent studies emphasize the importance of continuous professional development for principals to keep pace with the Fourth Industrial revolution and face the challenges it poses [10]. In fact, it is vital that school principals upgrade their skills to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving environment. The authors draw a new portrait of a South African principal listing essential skills due to the emergence of AI and other technologies: agility, information management and evaluation, communication expressiveness, critical thinking and problem solving, creativity [10]. The authors argue that developing these skills is crucial for principals to integrate innovative approaches into school leadership.
A separate part of literature review involved analyzing professional standards worldwide, as these documents encapsulate expectations set by the context and define leadership directions. Professional standards for school principals in various countries (Australia, Germany, UK) encompass key tasks and directions for leadership practice but often do not focus on profiling. However, the professional standard in the Netherlands stands out because, in addition to leadership practices, it defines personal traits of a school principal such as extraversion, humanity, conscientiousness, determination etc [40].
School leadership profiles can also be identified when analyzing existing psychometric tools for assessing principals’ traits. For instance, the Caring School Leadership Questionnaire (CSLQ) [46] that measures school leaders ' emotional intelligence. The CSLQ contains structured Likert-type items with four response options ranging from “not at all” to “to a large extent”, divided into three determinants: psychological, workplace/organizational and management. The questionnaire demonstrated good psychometric properties with reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) for all three determinants above 0.9, and validity confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Psychological determinants of caring leadership include emotional intelligence, interest in the person by displaying, meeting psychological needs, intrinsic motivation etc.
Another instrument aimed at measuring different competences of school principals is the online-based Competence Profile School Management (CPSM) tool [28]. The instrument combines several self-reflection scales to measure 24 key characteristics (tab. 1). The CPSM tries to integrate different perspectives of cognitive abilities and personality dispositions such as assertiveness, achievement motivation, ambiguity tolerance (tab. 1). The items from existing scales were reworded to fit the school context. This instrument demonstrated high reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) mostly between 0.70 and 0.86. However, it is important to consider the relatively small sample size (n=396), which may bias the results.
Overall, finding valid instruments for assessing school leaders’ personal traits in the research world is more complicated compared to the business sphere, where there are many more psychometric tools available. Even schools have begun employing services from HR companies. One example is the “School Principal Test” [42] designed to select candidates with strong intellectual skills capable of handling large amounts of information and making decisions. This test was created by “Creative Organizational Design”, Canada’s largest independent supplier of pre-screening assessment tools. The test battery contains three parts: a 171-question personality inventory, a 44-item test of mental ability (about equal number of items for verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning, and abstract reasoning), and 46 open-ended statements to which the candidate must type in short answers. It aims to measure conscientiousness, strong moral code, agreeableness, intelligence among others.
The mentioned literature was further systemized so that we can see the palette of characteristics and competencies relevant and crucial for school leadership. In Table 1 we demonstrate all the characteristics which appeared and collided across various studies, instruments and standards. It must be mentioned that the list of characteristics which appeared in only one of the studies or did not collide with other studies are not presented in the table (such as analytical thinking [28], competitiveness [42], perfectionist [29], idealist [29], altruism [47] etc). Such a systematization revealed that empathy, fairness, honesty, and firmness are the most common personal characteristics met in the leadership profiles. Meanwhile, only a few countries expect a leader to be solution-oriented, innovative, rational, curious, industrious, agile, resilient, democratic, committed, people-oriented, stress-resistant or have humanity. This highlights the necessity for drawing school principals’ psychosocial profiles as they are context specific and are influenced by existing educational systems, cultural peculiarities and approaches to leadership.

Sample

The study took place in one of the largest Russian Metropolises which comprises over 500 schools. A unique feature of this Metropolis is that schools are organized into large educational complexes. Thus, 80% of the schools have five and more buildings, which can be located in different districts.
The sample included seven principals and five deputy-principals from 12 different schools (4 males) within the metropolis from 5 different districts, primarily from the southern part. On average, the respondents had M=16.91 (SD = 4.38) years of teaching experience. Ten participants had between 12 to 18 years of teaching experience, while two had over 20 years. The average managerial experience among the respondents was M=6.55 (SD=2.73) years with a range from 1 to 9 years. This diverse range of experience allowed for a well-rounded assessment of the traits that contribute to a successful school principal.
The focus group sessions were facilitated by two moderators. All respondents verbally agreed to be recorded.
 
 
Table.
School principals’ psychosocial profiles across studies

Required leadership skills

Conceptual framework

School principal standards

Principals' perceptions of Leadership

Successful principals' characteristics

Scales to measure competencies

Boshkovska (2022) [6]

Awodiji, Naicker (2023)

 

Fernandes, Wong, Noonan (2023)

 

Kara, Ertürk (2015)

Kilag, Heyrosa-Malbas, Ibañez, Samson, Sasan (2023)

Gurr (2015)

The Competence Profile School Management (CPSM) (Huber Hiltmann (2011))

School Principal Test

The Caring School Leadership Questionnaire

Macedonia

South Africa

International study

Netherlands

Turkey

Philippines

International study

International study

Canada

South Africa

Honesty

 

 

Honesty

Honest

 

Honesty

 

 

Honesty

Fairness

 

 

Conscientiousness

Fair

 

Fairness

 

Conscientiousness

Fairness

Trust

 

 

 

Trustworthy

 

Trust

 

 

Trust

 

 

 

Courage

Courageous

 

Heroic

 

 

 

 

Creativity

 

Creativity

Creative

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Determination

Resolved

 

 

Assertiveness

Assertive

 

 

 

 

Openness

Frank, Open

 

Openness

 

Openness to new experience

 

 

 

 

 

Coherent

 

Persistent

 

 

Consistency

 

 

 

Wisdom and insight

Intelligent, Knowledgeable

 

 

 

Clever

 

Warmth

 

Empathy

Empathy

Empathy

 

Empathy

Empathy

 

Empathy

 

 

 

 

Innovative

 

 

Active pursuit of innovation

 

 

 

 

Self-regulate

Reserve

Modest

 

Humbleness

 

 

 

Firmness

 

 

 

Principled

 

Ethics of care

 

Strong moral code

Morality

 

 

 

 

Solution oriented

 

 

Achievement motivation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rational

 

 

Recognizing feasibility limits

 

 

 

 

 

 

Industrious

 

 

Readiness to work

 

 

 

 

 

Transparency

High moral standards

 

Transparent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tolerant

 

Tolerant

Ambiguity tolerance

 

Acceptance of others as they are

 

 

 

 

Inquisitive

 

Curiosity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Democratic

 

Democratic

 

 

 

Enthusiasm

 

 

 

Takes initiative

 

 

Work motivation, enthusiasm

Work motivation

 

 

Critical thinking & problem solving

 

 

 

Problem-solving & decision-making

 

 

 

 

 

 

Communication expressiveness

Social skills

 

Communication skills

Effective communication

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-aware

Reflection

Recognizes accomplishment

 

 

Self monitoring

 

 

Humility

 

Ability to change

 

 

 

 

Readiness to criticism

 

 

 

Collaboration

Collaboration

 

 

 

 

 

Collaboration

 

 

 

 

tact and listening

 

 

 

 

Agreeableness

 

 

 

 

Extroversion

 

 

 

 

Extroversion

 

 

 

Adaptability

Flexibility, adaptability

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Systems thinking (conceptual skills)

 

 

 

Process thinking

 

 

 

Agility

Flexibility (agile)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Self-regulation

Self-regulation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick thinking and action

 

 

 

 

Speed of thought

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motivation

 

Leadership motivation

 

Intrinsic motivation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Optimistic

 

Optimistic

Cheerfulness

 

 

Work within an uncertain environment

 

 

 

 

Stress resistance

 

 

 

 

Handles complexity well

 

 

 

 

 

Handles complexity well

 

 

 

 

Alertness (social skills)

 

 

Alertness

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friendliness

(personality traits)

 

 

Benevolence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resilient

Avoiding influence of others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People oriented

 

 

Interest in the person by displaying

 

 

 

 

 

 

Respectfulness

 

 

Respect

 

 

 

Humanity

 

 

 

 

 

Love for others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Affiliation motive

 

Commitment

Methods

We are following the behavior analysis methodology proposed by Feldman and Valenty (2001) which consists of three steps: collecting o qualitative data on the behavior of principals in a Russian metropolis through focus groups, categorizing this information into content categories, and analyzing to identify the key competencies of successful principal [39].
To carry out the research we used the conceptual framework of a school principal matrix developed by the Laboratory for School leadership at the Institute of Education, HSE University. The matrix was created based on the School Principal Professional Standard [5], certification requirements for principals, interviews with school principals and deputies of the Metropolis, and analyses of professional profiles and dimensions of successful school leadership in other countries. In this way, the matrix encompasses key leadership directions, tasks, and focuses specific to principal in the metropolis context. The matrix comprises four main leadership directions: educational process, school administration, school improvement, and interaction and collaboration with stakeholders.
The school principal matrix served as a foundation for our focus group sessions with principals and their deputies enabling us to unveil leadership practices. Overall, we carried three focus group sessions with experienced principals and deputies of a Russian Metropolis. Each session was divided into two parts and lasted five hours with a 30-minute break:
1 part. Respondents were asked to uncover the components within the matrix directions. For instance, “educational process” direction which includes elements such as defining school mission, educational program development etc. should have been presented by real-life behavioral manifestations of leadership. The procedure was carried out in several steps:
  • individually;
  • in pairs;
  • in a group of four.
This approach allowed a detailed examination of the leadership practices in the Metropolis.
2 part. The respondents were asked to share the issues and challenges they faced within particular directions of the matrix:
  • each respondent developed their own list;
  • the respondents lists were combined;
  • respondents were asked to rank the issues;
  • respondents were asked to develop solutions in pairs and to create a list of leadership characteristics needed to address the issue.
The results of the discussions were recorded using the iPhone 12 audio recorder “Voice Memos” app and transcribed manually by the authors of the article afterwards. The mean of the overall volume of analyzed transcripts is 47299.67 (SD=7068.06).
 
The research employs content analysis methods as part of its qualitative methodology approach. We are following the schemes suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006) which includes six steps: familiarizing yourself with your data, generating initial codes, searches for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and producing the report [13].

Results

       Both authors read all the transcripts to familiarize themselves with the full scope of the data containing various cases from Russian Metropolis principals’ daily routine. After that, we systematized the findings of the study into groups representing different principal practices according to the matrix used for data collection: educational process, administration of school, school improvement, and interaction and collaboration with stakeholders. The matrix itself and the focus group approach enabled us to develop a collective profile of a successful school principal in the Metropolis considering not only context-specific requirements but also principals’ perceptions, experience, and practices. The focus group sessions allowed us to observe different leadership situations and challenges across various activities which were then analyzed to identify and classify the key competences of a successful principal.
In the process of the analysis, it became clear that matrix titles did not explain the usage of specific behavioral characteristics and personality traits, thus we renamed and enlarged the list of identified domains. As a result, we got a psychosocial profile of a Metropolis principal consisting of five domains: building relationships, leading the organization, behaving in urgent or uncertain situations, school management, and school improvement. Each domain comprises skills which can be intertwined between the domains (fig. 1). The focus group session data analysis revealed that when exercising one operation principals can use several competences at once, for instance the importance of delegation skills was highlighted in school management and behaving in urgent or uncertain situation domains.
Figure 1. The scheme of psychosocial profile of Russian Metropolis principal
 
After identifying the domains, we searched for and reviewed the themes using a table for the inductive coding [7]. This table has two columns: one for transcribing the fragments divided into sentences and another for the codes to each fragment based on the competences titles listed in Table 1. Below are some excerpts from these quotations.
The Russian Metropolis principals emphasized that they spend most of the time building relationships, including communication with educational authorities, teachers, students, co-workers, etc. Based on their behavior patterns in this domain, competences such as communication, adaptability, and emotional intelligence - including its components like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management [20] - were identified:
 
“This is communication, the ability to build communication in conditions of certain conflict".
“These are our external partners [...] with whom the principal can help everyone”.
“[The main responsibility is] to build communication logistics”
 
Finally, the school principal must build general climate at school where he has to demonstrate collaboration skills, work motivation, trustworthiness, friendliness:
 
“Communication with children, in my opinion, is a very correct story regarding the formation of your image in their eyes.”
“He (successful principal) must train in his management team those people who can easily replace him at the stage of this communication and conflicts, and so on.”
 
The competencies related to building relationships are intertwined with the domain - leading the organization. The principal is expected to embody the same qualities that he expects from his subordinates. In this block the respondents insisted on the importance of demonstrating honesty, firmness, assertiveness and morality:
 
"If you say to the stage that, colleagues, we are professionals, but at the same time we must be honest, objective and something else, you need to demonstrate the same qualities with your behavior".
“Ability to organize and lead”.
 
The Metropolis principal also should exercise courage, quick thinking and action and handle complexity and even humiliation well. Moreover, he should be ready to admit his incompetence in some questions and collaborate with partners and co-workers to find the way out of any problem situation as soon as possible.
 
“The principal here is not “almighty”, and, unfortunately, he does not know the answers to all the questions and will not know. And one of the tasks is precisely set in such a way that the principal can [...] ask for help if he's incompetent in solving something”.
 
The next domain is related to the permanent urgent or uncertain situations where the principal must demonstrate its flexibility, agileness, self-development (desirous to learn), and also the delegation skills:
 
“Operational (tasks), they postpone all current ones. Strategic. From a management point of view, it looks like this. Received information, I definitely read it, I understand to whom I am delegating this”.
“Flexibility, yes. <...>, self-development, this is a very important quality”.
 
Moreover, work in an uncertain and even aggressive environment requires from the principal resist stress and demonstrate creativity resolving different situations:
 
“As they say, stress resistance”.
“It is creativity. This is real, every time there are new approaches to resolve this situation”.
 
At the same time, the principal also should be able to focus on one thing if the urgent situation requires his personal attention:
 
“Focus on one thing at the right time”.
 
Another domain which defines Metropolis principles’ practices is related to school management itself. Unlike principals of other countries, presented in literature review, who typically oversee just one school, a principal of the Russian Metropolis is responsible for a large educational complex. This unique context necessitates competences such as delegation skills, operational visionary and systems thinking:
 
"And when we all met, I realized, after working for a year, that if I don’t start to at least visually introduce people to each other, so that they understand who works with whom <...> our school is located in two districts".
 
“A specific school building is a disparate organization... That is, this is one team, the second is another team, which did not interact with each other even before the pandemic. And here, naturally, there was very direct manual control [by principal]”.
 
In fact, the Metropolis context puts impediments on the way of principal to actively participate in all aspects of school life, as it is impossible to present everywhere at once. Nevertheless, the respondents confirmed that if the situation involving teachers or students require their personal attention, they must demonstrate fairness, problem-solving and empathy:
“Well, I know that she is a good teacher. And here she [the student’s mother], writes such (negative) letters”.
 
Strategic planning, procedural competence, competitiveness, analytical thinking, and responsibility play a key role in another principals’ practices domain - school improvement. In fact, school improvement is primarily implemented via analysis of school data as school principals have to ensure they meet the systems’ requirements. A Metropolis principal controls school-wide efficiency indicators set by the accountability system. Furthermore, school leader carries the final responsibility for school results before the government structures that affect the salaries of his subordinates, financial support, school rating:
 
“We say that we have made changes to the educational program <...>. My role in the future is to see if our changes have somehow affected the results and outcomes of a large school or not”.
“If we talk about the olympiads, strategic planning, the story goes there about how to develop these movements, how to increase them”.
“Willingness to take responsibility and these risks, this also, it seems to me, is a very important quality.”.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to develop a comprehensive profile encompassing the psychosocial characteristics and personality traits of school principals, providing a holistic view of educational leaders in the Metropolis. The research demonstrates how these characteristics align with or diverge from global trends in educational leadership.
An examination of the findings related to the psychosocial profiling of Metropolis principal indicates that, despite contextual influence, some categories of school leader profile appear to be universal. In both international and Russian Metropolis contexts, “successful principals” must demonstrate high communication and collaboration skills that also imply specific psychological traits such as honesty, empathy, trustworthiness, fairness and friendliness. However, the characteristics such as openness and optimism, often highlighted in foreign research, are difficult to identify in respondents’ answers. Moreover, respondents emphasized the importance of resolving conflicts and assertiveness. The analyzed situations confirmed that a “successful Metropolis principal” should be able to effectively communicate with various parties involved (educational authorities, deputies, teachers, parents etc.) and resolve arising issues.
The trend is observed in other domains as well. Some personality traits and behavior characteristics completely coincide in most of the observed profiles, including those from the Russian Metropolis, for example, stress-resistance, flexibility, strategic thinking, system thinking, problem-solving and firmness. Nevertheless, certain competences derived from the school management domain, such as procedural competence, operational visionary, and delegation skills, seem unique to Russian Metropolis school leaders. In fact, the profile of a Metropolis principal emphasizes administering skills, and we assume these competences are specific not only to the particular Metropolis principals but also to Russian principals in other metropolitan areas. Several studies carried out in Russia have demonstrated that Russian principals spend one-third of their time on administrative tasks [33; 3]. Additionally, the respondents also outlined that they receive operational tasks daily, thus, although they acknowledge the importance of instructional leadership, the time they can dedicate to such tasks is limited.
The analysis of literature as well as our research have highlights that the psychosocial profiles of principals from various countries share some similarities and differences. We suppose that considering these differences is crucial as they help illustrate peculiarities of the approaches of different educational systems to defining “a successful principal”. These traits are context driven and emphasize the varying challenges faced by principals and the focuses of educational systems. In this way, such studies allow us to analyze the multifaceted nature of educational leadership.
However, the results of this study should be considered in light of certain limitations. Firstly, the study does not aim to generalize its results to other Russian metropolises. Given the vast cultural, socio-economic, and educational diversity across Russia’s numerous metropolises, findings derived from this limited cohort may not fully capture the broader spectrum of principals’ practices and competencies required for success in varied educational contexts within the country. Secondly, we suppose that it is essential to replicate the study to refine the list of psychosocial characteristics, as the presented study has a relatively small sample size and lacks demographic data on the respondents. To strengthen the conclusions and increase the credibility of the study, it is worth expanding the sample and validating the findings using quantitative methodology, which the authors plan to do in the near future. Additionally, the respondents acknowledged that the psychosocial profile of a principal in Metropolis might exhibit variations across different educational settings. The qualitative methodology employed in this research facilitated the construction of a generalized profile of a "successful principal," applicable across a broad spectrum of school contexts. However, further segmentation of schools could enhance this profile`s applicability and help develop more targeted leadership development strategies.

Conclusion

The educational context, cultural peculiarities, and school environment significantly influence the leadership`s psychosocial characteristics, underscoring the need for leaders to possess a diverse array of traits tailored to facilitate school improvement. This study aimed to synthesize a unified portrayal of an effective leader, specifically focusing on the essential attributes for a principal in Metropolis. This was achieved through analyzing the perceptions and experiences shared by principals and deputy principals.
Future research should aim to validate the identified competencies through quantitative methods and establish a comprehensive competency framework. Such a framework could then be recommended to governmental or corporate entities to refine the selection and development processes for school principals in Metropolis. Additionally, there is potential to expand the identified psychosocial profile by incorporating a wider range of behavioral patterns and personality traits of principals. This expansion would enrich our understanding of effective school leadership and contribute to developing leadership models that are both adaptive and context specific.

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Information About the Authors

Maria K. Pavlova, Research assistant at the Center for Psychometric and Measurements in Education. Analyst of the Laboratory of School Leadership, Institute of Education, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0813-5157, e-mail: mkpavlova@hse.ru

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