Research On The Nature,mechanism And Proper State Of School Governance In Chinese Universities

The university is a heavy organization at the bottom,and the school is the grassroots unit for the development of talents,scientific research,social services,and cultural heritage and innovation.Both the policy orientation of higher education and the reform practice represented by "pilot school" in China are aimed at promoting the decentralization of school management and the downward shift of management.However,the two-level management reform in Chinese universities and schools is basically in a state of "The transaction processing power is moved down;financial power,personnel power and crucial affairs power are still concentrated at the university level",showing the characteristics of "decentralization of functions".The unclear powers and responsibilities of the two levels of the university and school restrict the performance of school governance and the modernization of university governance.How to analyze power allocation problem of the two levels of the university and school from the new research perspective is the core and key to optimizing the governance of the school.This article studies this issue from the perspective of leadership distance in management.Leadership distance is an important driving force for leadership.Whether leadership behavior can play a role depends mainly on followers’ perception and evaluation of leaders in different leadership situations.This article selects four dimensions of leadership distance to analyze the nature of school governance.In university organizations,compared with university-level leaders,the physical distance between school leaders and teachers is close;the gap of social levels is small;the interaction frequency is high;and the subject distance is close,which is a typical close leadership.School leaders and teachers have more opportunities for communication and interaction.They can fully understand and meet the individual needs of teachers,and observe teachers’ performance in teaching and scientific research.On the other hand,followers can also directly observe the leader’s behavior and obtain a lot of information about the leader,so that they can directly evaluate leaders in a central and systematic way,forming a strong commitment to the school leader,and theninfluencing the follower’s behavior.Close leadership can achieve information symmetry,which is beneficial to fully respect individual differences and achieve scientific decision-making.However,frequent contact between leaders and teachers will cause interference and influence of interpersonal relationships,thus affecting the fairness and justice of decision-making.Distance leadership complements the strengths and weaknesses of close leadership.Therefore,in the two-level management of the university and school,we should not blindly delegate power to the school.We must grasp the interactive characteristics of the leadership process in different situations,combine the close leadership and distance leadership,and fully develop the strengths and avoid the weaknesses.To rationalize the relationship between the two levels of management and optimize the allocation of power,we need to focus on two factors: One is the richness of information;the other is the influence of interpersonal relationships.In order to achieve the proper state of school governance,first of all,the two levels of the university and school should divide their work and cooperate with each other to fulfill their duties and realize the unification of power and responsibility.Secondly,the school should create an atmosphere of democracy and equality;change the leadership role from the manager to the server;unblock formal and informal channels to promote the active participation of teachers.Finally,the university level must strengthen monitoring and evaluation to prevent abuse of power;select the school leaders with "excellent character and academic excellence" and give full play to the "head goose effect" of close leadership.