It takes two to dance : how do senior leaders’ and middle leaders’ varied understandings of leadership strategies relate to school improvement in Hong Kong /

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Student Theses

2025

Lee, Wang Sze Thomas

Thesis

Hong Kong is influenced by East and West cultures, making the study generate insights transferable to similar contexts around the globe. This thesis argues that the hybrid leadership style of senior leaders has evolved over the past two decades after the implementation of school-based management (SBM) in Hong Kong. Senior leaders have distributed their leadership with middle leaders through increased interaction. They expect middle leaders not only to excel in managerial tasks but also to demonstrate leadership roles. Accordingly, senior leaders are concerned about the development of middle leaders and fostering a harmonious working environment to enhance collaboration and effective school improvement.Although an abundance of research has revealed successful school leadership can achieve school improvement over the last decade (Day et al., 2016), research has not addressed how senior and middle leaders perceive effective principal leadership. This is especially true in Chinese cultural contexts. This study, therefore, (a) investigated how senior and middle leaders variously define and perceive the key strategies for leading school improvement, (b) revealed the similarities and differences between their views of key strategies, and (c) examined how senior and middle leaders see the similarities and differences of key strategies related to the school improvement target.This study undertook a comparative case study in two secondary schools. To gather the views of senior and middle leaders, a semi-structured one-on-one interview approach was implemented, followed by focus group interviews as a way of triangulation. The design of the interview protocol was based on the literature on effective educational leadership practices and the findings from a pilot study. A two-coding-stage strategy was used to generate pattern codes with matrices for analysis.The findings support the argument for changes in the leadership style between senior and middle leaders, revealing similarities and differences between their perceptions. (1) Senior leaders considered the feasibility of school targets, while middle leaders desired senior leaders to articulate direction clearly and set priorities. (2) Middle leaders preferred informal and direct communication with senior leaders. (3) Senior leaders focused on staff development and desired middle leaders to bear more leadership responsibilities. (4) Both senior and middle leaders desired a harmonious environment facilitating a collaborative and decision-making culture, and senior leaders perceived the importance of stabilising the teacher teams. This study also revealed senior leaders enacted distributed leadership with varying school organisational structures and fostered harmonious relationships in diverse approaches. Middle leaders prioritised their management-oriented responsibilities over their leadership roles. In addition, this study has revealed unique findings in relation to hybrid leadership in the Hong Kong context and the impediments and supports for school improvement.The implications of this study provide a reference for policymakers to review and refine teacher training and ranking systems for teachers and support middle leaders in developing their leadership capacity and understanding of their leadership role. For practice, this study underlines how senior leaders stabilise the teacher team and build a collaborative culture by fostering a harmonious environment, developing teachers through school-based development programmes, and collaborating with universities. Concerning implications for research, this study contributes to the literature on the nuanced changes in hybrid leadership after implementing SBM in Hong Kong, revealing the gaps in existing literature concerning how senior and middle leaders perceived and have changed their leadership roles, suggesting the direction for future research in developing staff development and school leadership. However, the findings were based on aided secondary schools

LG51.H43 Dr 2025eb Leewst

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/5tC7M8ZS