Exploring personality traits and mental toughness in early career teachers in England

Abstract While some teachers thrive, in similar circumstances other teachers encounter considerable difficulties. This is particularly concerning in England, where high numbers of teachers with five or fewer years' experience leave the profession to take another job outside of teaching, and pupil numbers are outpacing teacher numbers (Bryan & Price, 2025; Menzies, 2023). The power of personality traits in predicting a broad range of performance and achievement outcomes across the lifespan is well established (Beck & Jackson, 2022; Bleidorn et al., 2021), including teacher effectiveness (Bardach, Klassen & Perry, 2022). Our research aims to advance understanding of why some Early Career Teachers (ECTs) with two or fewer years’ experience thrive while others leave the profession prematurely. Using the six‐factor HEXACO Personality Model (Ashton & Lee, 2001), the Dark Triad of Personality (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) and the 4Cs Model of Mental Toughness (Clough, Earle & Sewell, 2002), our research examined relationships between adaptive and maladaptive personality traits and mental toughness among a sample of beginning Primary and Secondary teachers in England ( n = 130; 65% women; 76% ages 21–30 years). Personality models are typically hierarchically structured, with narrow, facet‐level traits (facets) being nested within and defining broad, factor‐level traits (factors). We examined relationships between extraversion and conscientiousness with mental toughness at factor and facet level, to derive a more nuanced understanding of influential constructs and provide a deeper insight than is commonplace within similar studies. As hypothesised, extraversion and conscientiousness were positively associated with mental toughness. Facet‐level analyses showed the social self‐esteem facet of extraversion was most important for having higher mental toughness among our sample of beginning teachers. Together, this suggests personal characteristics might buffer stressors such as workload and disruptive pupil behaviour among ECTs. As a secondary aim, we investigated whether subclinical narcissism might be beneficial for beginning teachers. Our analyses showed that social self‐esteem was solely responsible for the relationship between narcissism and increased mental toughness. suggesting previous findings might be epiphenomenal and there might be no brighter side of narcissism. A graphical abstract is available in the supplementary material.