Abstract. The leadership competence of school heads is among the essential elements that determine the success and effectiveness of schools. The research design chosen for the study was the explanatory sequential design utilizing a survey questionnaire, IDI, and FGD as the mode of gathering data. It aimed to determine the mediating effect of leader resilience profile on the relationship between ethical climate and leadership competence of school heads, in the Division of Davao Oriental. The participants were the teachers from the public elementary and secondary schools in the Division of Davao Oriental, Philippines. The participants in the study were long-term educators with over three years of experience who willingly took part in both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the research, including in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The research employed various statistical methods, such as mean, standard deviation, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, multiple regression, and the Sobel test. The quantitative phase results revealed a very high status in ethical climate, leader resilience profile, and leadership competence of school heads. Data also showed a significant relationship between the ethical climate and leadership competence, leader resilience profile and leadership competence, and ethical climate and leader resilience profile. The mediating effect of the leader resilience profile between the relationship of school heads' ethical climate and leadership competence showed a partial but significant mediation. On the other hand, the participants' standpoints on the salient findings of the study identified four themes with the corresponding nature of data integration: holistic ethical leadership, morally aligned persevering leadership, enduring adaptive leadership and adaptability, and ethical leadership interplay are all connecting-validating nature of integration.

Keywords: Education, educational leadership, ethical climate, leader resilience profile, leadership competence, school heads, explanatory sequential design, Philippines