Personal and socio-professional characteristics of heads of schools with different organizational cultures (part 1)

Background. The study continues a series of scientific publications about the psychological resources of innovative activity among heads of schools and teachers. In this paper, resources are considered with respect to the specifics of organizational culture that produce different learning outcomes and reflect differences in the managerial approach. This study is based on the idea that these differences arise from the personal and socio-professional characteristics of heads of schools. Aim: to identify the personal and socio-professional characteristics of heads of schools with different organizational cultures. Materials and methods. The study involved 152 people, of whom 85 were the heads of leading schools and 67 were the heads of schools with low learning outcomes in the Leningrad Region. Value-semantic attitudes and leadership style were considered personal characteristics, while the socio-professional ones comprised team roles, self-assessment of project competencies, managerial experience, and position. The following techniques were used: the Choice of Proverbs technique by N. Markina, the Multifactorial Leadership Questionnaire by B. Bass and B. Avolio, the Team Role Inventory by R. Belbin, and the authors’ questionnaire for self-assessment of project competencies. Statistical processing was carried out using the Mann-Whitney test and the Fisher's test. Results. The systemic and diffuse types of organizational cultures of schools with different learning outcomes for schoolchildren were empirically substantiated. The personal characteristics of heads of schools, depending on organizational culture and with respect to differences in value-semantic attitudes and leadership styles, were singled out. Conclusion. The study shows that organizational culture and different levels of learning outcomes can be determined by the culture of management, which is the actualization of a manager’s personal and socio-professional characteristics.