Summary.The members of staff of an English secondary modern school completed a battery of tests, one of which was the 16 Personality Factor Test of Cattell. The head teacher completed the test battery as well as rating each assistant teacher on nine aspects of teaching competence. These ratings were highly inter‐correlated and on factor analysis, two disproportionate principal components emerged. Scores for the similarity of the personality profiles of head teacher and teacher were calculated. These were then compared with the head teacher's rating of the teachers' teaching ability, of their relations with the head teacher and of their relations with staff colleagues. It appeared that teachers with profiles very similar to, or very different from that of the head teacher, usually had higher ratings for teaching ability and for social competence The teachers with the lowest ratings for teaching had a tougher, self‐confident unconventionality which would tend to make them independent of the head teac