An Analysis of the Development of Middle Leaders in Chinese Secondary Schools: The Role of the Principal

Abstract

Numerous studies conducted on educational leadership have generally emphasized the role of principal, whereas, research on middle leadership remains limited [1]. The purpose of this paper is to explore and investigate the development of middle leadership and seeks to fill in the gap by providing the analysis from a Chinese context. The author found that middle leaders are positioning at a challenging role, in which they are required to take charge of responsibilities of both a leader and a teacher, and in the meantime, they also need to negotiate between the senior leader, the colleagues. and subordinates. Furthermore, personal factors such as self-awareness and resilience are discovered to be pivotal for middle-leadership development. Apart from that, the principal plays a critical role in establishing collaborative school culture that facilitates the development of middle leaders based on the influences from the school’s history, culture, and policies.