Harmony in between principals' proficiency and organizational culture in successful schools

School administrators, who are the implementers of education policies in schools, are the main elements in creating and maintaining a strong and positive school culture. Based on this, the importance of the competencies of the administrators in terms of bringing the effectiveness and efficiency of the school to the highest level and creating a positive school culture is revealed by the researches. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the harmony in between sufficiency of the administrators working in successful schools and culture of a school itself. Phenomenology design was used in this research. LGS(High School Entrence Exam) was taken as a success criteria in this research. First of all, high schools in Istanbul were ranked according to their 2021 LGS achievement scores. Interviews consisted 15 participants, those are 5 school principals and 10 teachers who are working over 2 years in the related schoolds. In the research, a semi-structured interview form was used so as to collect data. The data were analyzed by the content analysis method. Research results were constituted under themes of Katz's Skills of Administrator and Hofstede's Organizational Culture model. In this context, successful school principals stated that the basic skill they need in management is mastery of the official language, and the most effective motivation tool they use is appreciating success. Based on the opinions of the participants, it was concluded that power distance is low, uncertainty avoidance is high, masculine characteristics and individual work are prioritized in these schools.