Leadership Research Summary:
• Enhancing teacher leadership is not only one of the approaches to improving teaching and learning, but it is also essential to the success of education reform. Based on leader-member exchange theory, 294 preschool teachers in China were surveyed, and a structural equation model was established to explore the relationship between the participating teachers’ principal leadership style, teacher leadership and psychological capital.
• The findings revealed a significant positive correlation between transformational and transactional leadership styles and preschool teacher leadership. The laissez-faire leadership style had no correlation with preschool teacher leadership. The transformational leadership style and transactional leadership style were significantly and positively correlated with psychological capital, while the laissez-faire leadership style was significantly and negatively correlated with psychological capital.
• The transformational leadership style can positively influence preschool teacher leadership directly and indirectly through psychological capital; and the transactional leadership style can only positively influence preschool teacher leadership indirectly through the mediating role of psychological capital. Preschool teachers’ leadership can neither be directly influenced by a laissez-faire leadership style nor be indirectly influenced through the mediating role of psychological capital.
Leadership Research Findings:
Preschool principals
• As the manager and head of the preschool, the principal’s own actions can influence the perceptions and practices of the organization’s members. In addition, it may affect the organizational climate of the school as a whole. When the principal is able to actively engage in leadership practices that set an example for teachers, preschool teachers are influenced by the principal’s positive behavioral practices and are able to look to the principal and learn from her or his own leadership practices.
• Therefore, in management and teaching, the principal should actively exert his or her unique charisma and leadership skills to influence preschool teachers’ perceptions of leadership practices, to “practice what you preach” and to “teach by example” as management guidelines, and to strive to set an example for preschool teachers with his or her own leadership practices.
• When preschool teachers are leaders who have a positive, non-powerful influence on children, colleagues, and even other people in the preschool, they demonstrate the characteristics of leaders who can influence others and lead them to progress. In addition, each teacher is an individual and must shine differently from others in the group.
• As the manager of the whole team, the principal should be good at discovering the shining points of each teacher, tapping into his or her leadership talents, encouraging teachers to take on leadership roles other than teaching based on their specific situations and personality characteristics, and bringing their professional strengths and authority to bear on other teachers and lead the whole preschool to a higher level of development.
For preschool teachers
• Preschool teachers need to change their role and understanding in a timely manner. Preschool teachers often habitually think of themselves as just a teacher, a follower of the director and management, and do not yet have a clear understanding of the identity of a teacher leader.
• Wei and Cheng (2022) suggests that having a certain sense of leadership within is a prerequisite for the development of teacher leadership, and that teachers need to recognize that they can also exert positive influence on others as well and can lead team members to grow together.
• Therefore, the first prerequisite for developing preschool teachers’ leadership is to promptly change preschool teachers’ orientation and understanding of their own roles, and preschool teachers must realize that they can be non-powerful “leaders” who have positive influence on children, colleagues, and various personnel in the school. This “leader” has nothing to do with position or power, but rather with the recognition and learning of other teachers, school staff and parents for their excellent teaching and professional knowledge.
• Teacher leadership is essentially a job-embedded professional development that enables educational reform and instructional improvement through ongoing, site-based professional development (Poekert, 2012). Preschool teachers need to strengthen their professional skills in order to promote leadership. They can rely on a variety of resources provided by the school to enhance their professional talents, such as active participation in professional learning communities (PLCs).
• In PLCs, educators work together to enhance student learning through inquiry questions; identify goals for educator learning; engage in collaborative learning through formal and informal professional learning strategies such as lesson study, assessment of student work, and peer coaching; reflect on practice; and hold each other accountable for improved practice and outcomes. PLCs are essential to support teacher leaders in overcoming isolation and other challenges they may encounter when assuming leadership responsibilities.
• In addition to the above, preschool teachers need to maintain a positive mental state. It is inevitable that preschool teachers will encounter many teaching problems and challenges in their work, and sometimes it is difficult for their professionalism to be recognized by others, and they do not have the support and understanding of parents, or even the understanding and help of colleagues or principals.
• This requires teachers to adjust their mindset and work status in a timely manner, always have enough confidence and hope in the early childhood education, be able to put in some effort when facing various challenges and problems, believe that they are capable of accomplishing them, and be persistent.