A Case Study Of The Working Status Of The Principal In The Later Stage Of His Career

Late career is an indispensable and necessary stage during a principal's professional career,which the working status and leadership efficacy of a late career principal tends to exerts a significant influence on the sustainable development and continuous improvement of a school.However,some late career principals are confronted with burnout,passion recession and loss of revolution motivation,which impedes sustainable improvement of schools critically.In recent years,as a multitude of principals of Baby Boom Generation step into late career,theoretical and practical value of systematic research on the working status and leadership of late career principals is becoming increasingly prominent.This study takes Principal Y of Primary School S in City N as the case object,analyzing Principal's organizational commitment,affective commitment and work engagement,based on the text analysis,interviews and observation research.This study finds that Principal Y is characterized by lower organizational commitment to the school,higher affective commitment to teachers and students,passion recession,loss of revolution motivation and a higher sense of leadership achievement.This study explores five practical leadership practice of Principal Y,including leading curriculum and pedagogy,leading professional development of teachers,implementing school administration,summarizing individual experience and planning leadership succession.Leadership practice of Principal Y has exerted a series of influence,including lower job satisfaction,passive working status,family-school relationship strain,difficulty of family-school cooperation,alienated group relationship and competitive interpersonal relationship.Based on the systematic analyses and research,this study draws three aspects of conclusion.First,late career principals are characterized by leadership passion recession,loss of revolution motivation and a higher sense of leadership achievement.They tend to focus on staff instead of affairs,and prefer authority centralization.Their leadership level is limited to administrators,who improve leadership by individual experience instead of continuous learning.Second,late career principals are confronted with some challenges,such as confined system support,increasingly complex leadership situation and staff's indifferent attitudes.At last,late career principals are also provided with some opportunities,including an advantageous tendency of tenure extension and re-employment of late career principals and implementation of compensation reform.The case study of a late career principal provides significant and valuable inspiration and reference to improve working status of late career principals and promote sustainable development of schools.First,strengthen the discipline of self-transcendence,bridging the gap between principals' working situation and leadership vision.Second,forge the school into a development community,leading staff to improve the working status of principals.Next,strengthen the convergence of principal career,coordinating experience input in early career and system support in late career.Then,promote efficient working status,optimizing working experience and leadership practice.Finally,facilitate continuous career development,building a new form of being engaged in work sequentially for late career principals.