The Leadership Identity of Principals: A Systematic Literature Review

In recent decades, there has been an increasing interest in the process of identity construction of school principals in order to improve education. The construction of this identity is shaped by internal and external factors, and this is an issue that requires further investigation. The present systematic review explored the construction of professional leadership identity from an external viewpoint. For this purpose, a bibliographic search was conducted to find articles published in journals indexed in the Web of Science database during the last 10 years. Our findings reveal the influence that “the others” have on the construction of a professional leadership identity in school principals. The key factors that influence this identity construction are also presented. Therefore, it is necessary to consider “other points of view” in order to obtain a broader and more complete vision of the realities faced by school principals in the construction of their leadership identity.