Building emotional principal–teacher relationships in Chinese schools: Reflecting on paternalistic leadership

Haiyan QIAN, Allan David WALKER

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Leadership is enacted through relationships. Relationships between leaders and followers entail building emotional connections. A successful leader facilitates and supports mutually beneficial relationships with teachers, students and other community members. They do this through displaying high levels of emotional competence, confidence and empathy. Using data collected from 101 primary school principals from six Chinese provinces, this paper explores how principals build reciprocal relationships with teachers via the display and enactment of paternalistic leadership. That is, the principals adopted a paternal leadership approach where they provided protection and care for teachers’ professional and personal lives while maintaining high expectations of quality teaching and cultivating a shared understanding of what teachers should and should not do. Many of the principals managed to win trust from teachers, which appeared to signify a strong personal bond founded on positive emotions. As such, the study provides an empirical basis to reflect and revisit the concept of paternalistic leadership and relationship between culture, leadership and emotional relationships. Copyright © 2021 De La Salle University.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)327-338
JournalThe Asia-Pacific Education Researcher
Volume30
Issue number4
Early online date22 Mar 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2021

Citation

Qian, H., & Walker, A. (2021). Building emotional principal–teacher relationships in Chinese schools: Reflecting on paternalistic leadership. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 30(4), 327-338. doi: 10.1007/s40299-021-00563-z

Keywords

  • China
  • Emotion
  • Relationship
  • Paternalistic leadership

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Building emotional principal–teacher relationships in Chinese schools: Reflecting on paternalistic leadership'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.