Leadership Support, Mentoring and Institutional Resilience in Public and Private Schools in Romania

The demands of the labor market are constantly changing, and for this reason educational institutions are facing great pressures to adapt to the current economic and geopolitical challenges. Leadership techniques, mentoring and continuous professional development are important non-financial investments that support resilience within an institution and its performance. The literature on the economics of education highlights the role of leadership and organizational culture. However, empirical evidence on how these mechanisms work is limited. This paper studies the relationship between managerial support, the organization's orientation towards teachers' professional development and the perceived role of mentoring, using cross-sectional data following a questionnaire applied to 81 teachers employed in public and private schools in Romania. Ordered logistic regression models were applied to evaluate the associations between the variables of interest. The results indicate that higher levels of perceived leadership support and stronger orientations towards professional development are associated with a higher likelihood of reporting greater mentoring effectiveness. No significant differences were found between public and private institutions. A significant marginal interaction was also found between leadership support and career development orientation. Thus, leadership techniques are more effective in institutions that actively promote continuous professional development. The study contributes by conceptualizing leadership support and mentoring as internal methods complementary to financial investments and provides interesting perspectives for public policies, with the aim of strengthening organizational capacity in educational institutions.