Do Teachers Perceive “A Shared Sense of Us”? – Social Identity Leadership of Kindergarten Principals in Mainland China

Soar in the children population following the termination of Mainland China’s three-decade-old one-child policy has aroused attention and concern of the quality of early childhood education, especially the leadership and management approaches of kindergarten principals. However, practical tools for assessing kindergarten principal leadership have not yet been developed in Mainland China. Identity leadership (IL) is a new model in leadership research, and the Identity Leadership Inventory (ILI) facilitates leadership assessment in different contexts with diverse samples. This is the first study to explore principal identity leadership in a Chinese educational context. The Principal-ILI (P-ILI) Chinese version was administered to kindergarten principals and teachers from municipalities and provinces all over Mainland China. A total of 2743 valid responses were collected from 498 kindergartens. Results revealed not only good reliability and validity of P-ILI in the Chinese educational context, but also high perceived IL of most kindergarten principals as well as differences in IL perceived by respondents of different ages, positions, and kindergarten types.