Primary School Teachers’ Perceptions of Headmasters’ Transformational Leadership in Guangdong Province

Abstract

Transformational leadership is widely regarded as crucial for sustaining teacher motivation and school improvement, yet descriptive evidence from China’s reform-intensive regions remains limited. This study investigates how primary school teachers in Guangdong Province perceive their headmasters’ level of transformational leadership, addressing the lack of dimension-specific evidence in this context. Using localized Transformational Leadership Questionnaire, data were collected from 384 full-time primary school teachers through convenience sampling and analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that teachers, overall, perceived their headmasters’ transformational leadership as high. Among the four dimensions, Moral Modeling received the highest mean score, followed by Visionary Inspiration and Charismatic Leadership, indicating that headmasters are generally viewed as ethical leaders who provide clear direction and professional confidence. Individualized Consideration, however, recorded the lowest mean score and the greatest variability, suggesting uneven experiences of personalised support and relational engagement. These findings reveal a leadership profile characterised by strong moral and vision-oriented behaviours but relatively weaker relational practices under heavy reform-driven workloads. The study offers context-specific evidence from Guangdong’s primary schools and provides practical implications for strengthening headmasters’ training, refining leadership evaluation, and aligning policy efforts with the goal of more teacher-centred, supportive school leadership.