Exploring the Impact of School Leadership on Teacher Well-being in Three High-performing Case Study Schools in China

Abstract

Research related to teacher well-being stands insufficient for maintaining education quality and particularly absent in Chinese educational contexts which also present high-performing environments. These contexts produce teacher stress because teachers experience demanding performance targets and institutional requirements which limit their ability to participate in administrative choices. Performance-based stress combined with minimal decision-making involvement leads teachers to experience burnout which results in decreased motivation and increased exodus levels affecting student outcomes and school persistence stability. This investigation employs qualitative multiple-case study methods to investigate the school leadership practices' relationship with teacher well-being because it directly studies this connection. The researchers selected high-performing schools through purposeful methods to conduct interviews while analyzing documents about various leadership techniques that affect staff motivation and wellness and self-direction and professional roles. The constructivist epistemology study revealed five key patterns demonstrating the relationships between leadership styles and motivational impacts along with their influence on identity but also depicting how accountability stress affects leadership abilities and dependency on emotional intelligence for trust development alongside the finding that inclusive leadership promotes self-direction and inter-staff cooperation and participative decision-making reinforces cultural support systems. The research shows that leadership methods which display emotional intelligence coupled with inclusive participation foster better teacher wellbeing. The research output led to the creation of a sustainable leadership design which unites emotional intelligence together with distributed leadership and well-being-oriented policy planning. Educational policy creators along with institutions will find advantage in this framework due to its sequential guidance to reduce teacher distress and build learning environments without academic performance loss.