A survey of 47 Pennsylvania school districts examined the traits of deference and authoritarianism among educators and investigated the relationship between these two psychological qualities and school administrative promotion. Questionnaires returned by 493 school administrators and teachers measured each respondent's degrees of authoritarianism and deference and recorded data on their sex, age, marital status, organizational rank, and educational experience. The results showed that school administrators at higher organizational levels were not more authoritarian. They also showed that deferent individuals tended to be authoritarian and, more important, of high organizational rank. Further, although women tended to be more deferent than males, they were significantly under-represented among school administrators, indicating a possible sex bias in the selection of administrators. (Author/RW)