Abstract. Based on results of TALIS-2013, of which Russia was a participant for the first time, we analyze the demographic characteristics, years of work experience and workload of school principals, their competencies and opportunities for professional development, as well as their working conditions, responsibilities and priorities. We also discuss how principals participate in teacher performance assessments and delegate their school management powers, which resources they need, and how they assess the performance of their schools. Research was conducted in 14 regions of Russia and revealed different levels of leadership potential in educational institutions. The recent changes to the education system (the new Federal Law "On Education" and the new Federal State Educational Standards) require principals to work in a transformational leadership style, but only few of the respondents appear to succeed in this. Principals prefer "operating manually" and interacting with individual teachers, not staff groups. Authoritarianism and unwillingness to delegate power are the major handicaps to the transformational leadership of schools principals. There has been no established system for school principal training in Russia so far. Only a few of the regions are reported to have trained over 20 percent of candidates prior to employment; meanwhile, there are some regions with no principal training at all. It is imperative that school principal training programs teach teambuilding, delegation of power and distributed leadership skills.

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The article describes validation process of the diagnostic tool for monitoring assessment of socio-emotional habits in elementary school. The tool is based on the Big Five model and includes three scales: Goal achievement, Cooperation and Emotional control. Two validation researches have been conducted, both on third-grade students from Moscow and Tatarstan elementary schools. Preliminary research (N=1318) examined the construct validity and reliability of the questionnaire. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis and methods of Modern Test Theory have confirmed hypothecated factorial structure. Subsequent research (N=2559) proved criterion validity of the questionnaire: it showed expected level and direction of correlation with the results of reading and mathematical skills testing. Presented questionnaire can be used for group monitoring assessment of socio-emotional development in elementary school.