Leadership Styles Of Kindergarten Principals On Kindergarten Teachers’ Leadership-Psychological Empowerment As Mediation

The professional development level of kindergarten teachers is related to the connotative and high-quality development of preschool education in the new era.As an important manifestation of teachers’ professional development,kindergarten teachers’ leadership can stimulate teachers’ work motivation,peer support among teachers,and the development of preschool quality.Leadership styles of kindergarten principals,as one of the important environmental variables,affects the work and competence of kindergarten teachers and has an important impact on their professional development.In addition,perception of empowerment is an intrinsic driver that motivates teachers and influences their behaviour.Therefore,in order to study the internal and external factors affecting kindergarten teachers’ leadership,it is necessary to examine kindergarten teacher leadership in terms of both the leadership style of kindergarten principals and the psychological empowerment of kindergarten teachers.This study was conducted with 465 kindergarten teachers in Liaoning Province,using the New Leadership Theory and Social Exchange Theory as the basis of the study and the adapted Leadership Style Questionnaire for kindergarten principals,the Psychological Empowerment Scale for Kindergarten Teachers and the Leadership Power Scale for Kindergarten Teachers as the research tools to explore the current situation of the three variables and their relationships.The results of the study showed that:(1)Leadership styles of kindergarten principals was at a moderate level.It indicates that transformational leadership and transactional leadership of the current leadership style of the kindergarten principals are prevalent in the kindergarten.The kindergarten principals transformational,transactional leadership style were extremely significant differences in age,education,income and title,and significant differences in establishment and nature of the garden.(2)The psychological empowerment of kindergarten teachers was shown to be at a moderate level,with extremely significant differences in terms of age,childcare situation,education and job title,and significant differences in the nature of the school and position.(3)Kindergarten teacher leadership at a moderate to high level,there are extreme significant differences in kindergarten teacher leadership in terms of marriage,education,title,and size of the school,and significant differences in establishment and position.(4)The transformational and transactional leadership styles of kindergarten principals,kindergarten teacher psychological empowerment,kindergarten teacher leadership were significantly positive correlated;the kindergarten principals transformational and transactional leadership styles predicted kindergarten teacher leadership;and kindergarten teachers’ psychological empowerment played a mediating role in the relationship between the transformational and transactional leadership styles of kindergarten principals and kindergarten teacher leadership.According to the results of the above survey,this paper proposes the follows recommendations:(1)Give care to kindergarten teachers to enhance their participation in decision-making in the Kindergarten.(2)Focus on compensation and rewards to help teachers gain interpersonal continuity of improvement.(3)Emphasize kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of empowerment and promote their professional growth in teaching and learning.(4)Develop kindergarten teacher leadership characteristics and promote teacher leadership.