The Demographic Profile of School Principals in Greece in Relation to Their Personality and Authentic Leadership

This paper presents the results of a study conducted in Greece among the principals of the primary and the junior/senior high schools. The study collected information on the principals’ personality, authentic leadership and demographics. Characteristics such as their gender, age, teaching experience and educational level comprise their demographic profile which is useful knowledge when attempting to implement targeted leadership training for school principals. Next, these characteristics were related to the five factors of personality to unveil which of them and to what extent affect the well-known and widely used in research traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience. Also, they were used to pinpoint their level of effect on the four factors of authentic leadership, namely self-awareness, balanced processing, relational transparency and internalized moral perspective. The results provide interesting insight as to how the demographic characteristics, which have not been researched widely, are related to the Greek principals’ personality and authentic leadership. This paper suggests that demographic profiling should be given more attention in research as it seems to significantly relate to both personality and leadership. Therefore, it should be included and taken into consideration by any research aimed to pinpoint the needs, skills and inclinations of school principals in order to prepare and deliver to them appropriate leadership training.