ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Resilient Leadership in Female Principals: A Case Study of a Chinese Female School Leader
Provisionally accepted
- Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The educational transformation in China has introduced unprecedented complexity and uncertainty into school organizations, presenting unique challenges and opportunities for educational leadership. This qualitative study single-case study explores the antecedents and development of resilient leadership by examining the case of a female vice-principal at a higher vocational college, utilizing three in-depth interviews supplemented by a two-month period of naturalistic observation. The findings underscore the importance of individual traits, past successes, and external factors in nurturing resilient leadership among female principals. By integrating the trait and behavioral perspectives of resilience theory, female resilient leadership can be categorized into three domains in Chinese contexts: perceptiveness and planning, resistance and adaptability, and inspiration and growth potential. Drawing on resource conservation theory, the study delineates the development of female resilient leadership in schools and provides recommendations for enhancing leadership practice.
Keywords: China, Educational transformation, Female leadership, organizational behavior, principal leadership, Resilient leadership, VUCA environment
Received: 03 Oct 2025; Accepted: 09 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hongjie Yin
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.