Team roles and middle leadership expectations in Hong Kong schools

The Relationships Between Team Roles and Middle Leadership of School Teachers in Hong Kong
Abstract
Team roles are considered as one of the crucial agents of school success. School middle leaders play a critical role in school improvement. The present study investigated the relationship between Belbin Meredit’s nine “Team Role” personality dimensions of serving middle leaders in primary and secondary schools and their expectations.
Research Objective:
To use Belbin’s Job Roles and Team Roles Analysis to identify: Job roles expectation of school middle leaders If there is a fit of in-serving school middle leaders’ actual team roles and job expectations. Methodology:
The survey method was used, with Belbin’s Job Roles analysis applied as a framework for analysis. The approach involved implementing the Belbin Interplace Analysis to 321 in-service school teachers including 238 middle leaders who attended a 5-week Middle Leader Training Programme to identify the team role behaviors that most commonly exhibited. Analyses were conducted to determine (a) possible job role expectations associated with middle leaders, (b) the actual tendencies of serving middle leaders’ team roles in school, and (c) any relationships between the job expectations and the actual team roles.
Findings
Most teachers holding middle positions have a tendency to display particular team roles, namely, Implementer, Monitor Evaluator, and Team Worker. There is a consistent relationship with the survey results about their job requirements. Results also revealed that the difference between primary and secondary school teachers are insignificant.
Conclusions
Overall results illustrate that there is a significant difference between the team roles of serving junior teachers and senior teachers holding middle leadership positions in schools, in particular the roles of Monitor Evaluators. The findings have numerous implications for research and practice in teacher development and school improvement in a particular teacher development perspective. It is clear that teachers should make effort to develop towards certain team roles characters for better career development.

Keywords: Monitor Evaluator, middle leadership, senior teacher team roles, Belbin model leadership

Introduction
One of the important findings among researchers on middle leadership is that a need exists for more empirical evidence on what middle leaders think, what attitudes they have, and what their expectations are (Harris, Jones, Ismail & Nguyen, 2019). Likewise, Buyl, Boone and Wade (2019) ask whether middle managers and regular employees have an impact on an industry’s sustainability. Because the overall effect of attitudes of regular employees in the schools on student performance is important, there is a need to research further to uncover what the beliefs of middle leaders are in primary and secondary schools and whether they match what they should be for successful development of students.
In short, what should middle leaders try to be?
Belbin (2012) argues that role players need to understand their roles when they are part of a team. When the role is understood, strengths can be leveraged and weaknesses can be better managed. This allows for better contribution to the team overall. Role confusion has, in fact, often been associated with job dissatisfaction and poor performance (Algdag & Brief, 1978; Paolini & Topdemir, 2013).
The Belbin model is commonly used among team development practitioners to establish teams that are balanced and effective (Fisher, Hunter & Macrosson, 1998; Lynch, Lynch & Clemens, 2018; Ruch, Gander, Platt & Hofmann, 2018). If teams are full of members who all have the same types of roles and behaviors, the team can easily become disproportionate in its approach and have an unbalanced effect on others. To cultivate success among students, middle leaders must know their places, roles and what is expected of them in terms of behaviors (Gander, Ruch, Platt, Hofmann & Elmer, 2018; Ruch et al., 2018). The question is: are middle leaders meeting the expectations that stakeholders have for them? To answer that question, this study investigated the relation between the Belbin Meredit’s nine “Team Role” personality dimensions of serving middle leaders in primary and secondary schools and stakeholders’ expectations.
Research Objective
The objective of this research was to use Belbin’s Job Roles and Team Roles Analysis to identify:
1. Job role expectations of school middle leaders and
1. Whether there is identification between in-serving school middle leaders’ actual team roles and the job expectations.
To answer these objectives, surveys were conducted with stakeholders and with teachers. A total of 238 senior teachers in Hong Kong attended a 5-week full-time refresher training course for serving senior leaders from primary and secondary schools. 
Two surveys per individual teacher were conducted: a self-perception inventory and an observer checklist, both of which were completed online.
Additionally, 83 non-senior teachers were surveyed in the same manner. The purpose of these surveys was 1) to obtain data so as to see what impact the variable of senior leadership had on Team Role, 2) to identify how close the actual Team Role behaviors of middle leaders were to the expected role behaviors, 3) to compare senior teacher Team Role behaviors to non-senior Team Role behaviors so as to understand what behaviors non-senior teachers could focus on in order to better ready themselves to be middle leaders.
Finally, a survey of 3268 stakeholders from 112 schools in Hong Kong was conducted to identify the top Team Role requirement expected of senior teachers by stakeholders. Those surveyed included principals, senior teachers, teachers, parents and other school workers about what they saw as the most important job role.
Chi-square goodness of fit test was conducted to see whether senior teachers were demonstrating the variable of senior leadership and Team Role exhibited.
The null hypotheses were:
H0:  There is no difference between senior teachers’ demonstrated Team Role behaviors and stakeholders’ expected Team Role behaviors for senior teachers.
H0:  There is no difference between senior teachers and non-senior teachers’ demonstrating the expected Team Role behaviors.
Background
Two popular models for developing, managing and leading teams are Tuckman’s Five and Belbin’s Team Role Inventories. Tuckman’s Five is used to describe the phases of development of teams and focuses on personalities, leadership, communication, and the overall formation and maintenance of team through the implementation of supportive techniques and morale-building. Tuckman’s Five is useful as a conceptual model but its weakness is that lacks a metrical system of analysis for giving a clear standard, which itself is not always practical given the uniqueness of teams, members, leaders, situations, challenges, and environments that all teams generally must address on a case by case basis.
Belbin’s Team Role Inventories, on the other hand, offers a more analytical approach to the concept of team building as it provides a behavioral test that can be used to measure and evaluate the individual’s place within the system of nine various Team Roles. Where Tuckman’s Five focuses on processes, Belbin’s model focuses on roles and expectations, and it helps to show how roles can be integrated to provide a holistic approach to leadership and management. The Belbin model is generally viewed as enabling a focus on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of team members in terms of the role they are expected or required to fulfill. For example, a Coordinator might enable the team to identify ways each member can best contribute to the whole. Completers, Specialists and Finishers may focus energy on different areas of activity so as to achieve a specific outcome. The Team Role Circle consists of nine team roles, each one contributing to the performance of the team in their own ways:
1. Plant
2. Resource Investigator
3. Coordinator
4. Shaper
5. Monitor Evaluator
6. Team Worker
7. Implementer
8. Completer Finisher
9. Specialist
The Plant is creative and free-thinking and fulfills the role of problem solver. The Resource Investigator is outgoing and communicative and is expected to explore opportunities and develop contacts. The Coordinator is meant to identify talent, clearly state goals, and delegate authority. The Shaper excels under pressure and supplies the motivation and energy to overcome challenges. The Monitor Evaluator is objective and focused on strategy with the aim being to identify options and assess them accurately. The Teamworker brings a spirit of cooperation and diplomacy to the team and helps to promote listening and empathy, reducing friction among individuals. The Implementer is practical and consistent and is expected to help bring ideas to life by taking pragmatic steps. The Completer/Finisher is responsible for identifying errors and polishing the final product. The Specialist focuses on a single purpose and brings special or expert knowledge to an area of focus that others can rely upon to help them make the right decisions.
Each team role is important but within the context of middle leadership, particular roles are expected of teachers. The nine roles can be categorized into three groups for easier understanding: Thinking Roles, Action Roles, and Social Roles. Thinking Roles include Plants (PL), Monitor Evaluators (ME) and Specialists (SP); Action Roles include Shapers (SH), Implementers (IMP) and Completer Finishers (CF), and Social Roles include Coordinators (CO), Team Workers (TW), and Resource Investigators (RI) (Lynch, Lynch & Clemens, 2018).
According to Belbin’s model, all nine roles will not be needed at all times but various phases of leadership will require some roles more than others (Lynch et al., 2018). In terms of middle leadership among educators, it is argued by Fleming (2019) that successful middle leaders should hold primarily social roles to help create “can do” environments that are supportive, accommodative and motivational (p. xiii).
In Hong Kong schools, senior teachers are teachers who are promoted to a level of middle leadership. Senior teachers have to take charge of a subject department and typically hold a position in a leading role with a variety of other functional responsibilities. The term “senior teachers” in this study thus refers to teachers who are promoted, not necessarily teaching senior grades or higher years of service.
Most teachers in Hong Kong are serving in publicly funded schools, with 92% primary and 93% secondary schools being publicly funded in 2019. Senior teachers are teachers who have been promoted at least once. The teacher career structure in a school adheres to the following progression: teacher – senior teacher – deputy principal – principal. When they are promoted, they receive higher salary and greater responsibility in leading a subject team as well as fulfilling other functional duties.
Middle leaders in schools must provide oversight of teachers and report to deputy principals. To better understand the roles expected of them and what roles they demonstrate in their actions, this study conducted a survey of school principals, senior teachers, teachers, and parents. It then conducted a survey among teachers and senior teachers to assess the role characteristics that these role players actually demonstrate. The manner in which this data was collected will be discussed more fully in the Methodology section. Before proceeding, a brief review of the relevant literature on team roles and middle leadership will help to show why this study was needed.
Literature Review
Leadership has different requirements at different levels of practice. In general, Lunenburg (2012) states that leadership is an influence process, meaning that what are often referred to as leadership styles—such as transformational, transactional, servant, democratic, or authoritarian leadership—are really simply influence processes that leaders engage in to varying degrees so as to positively affect their teams and workplaces. This is not a new idea in the literature of leadership: Singh-Sengupta (1997) has also argued that leadership styles are merely influence processes in which various interpersonal influences are used to motivate or to communicate with followers to facilitate effective performance. Self-actualization is sometimes identified as the goal of leadership, and is identified by Maslow (1943) as the pinnacle of the hierarchy of needs—i.e., the goal motivators should seek to help individuals to reach so that they are inherently self-motivated. At the level of self-actualization, self-leadership becomes the manner in which the potential of the workers and the organization is achieved (Prussia, Anderson & Manz, 1998).
Leadership styles are not the only influence processes. Others include direct decision-making, allocating resources, implementing a reward system, identifying and promoting leaders from within, and role modeling (Brown & Trevino, 2014; Kameda, Ohtsubo & Takezawa, 1997). Building trust, establishing credibility, and utilizing expert power or referent/charismatic power are other ways (De Vries, 1998). Famous contemporary leaders of the past and present, such as Richard Branson and Elon Musk, are leaders who are said to combine expert power and charismatic power to influence those around them, particularly stakeholders with whom they engage on social media or in person (De Vries, 1998). Leveraging Twitter is a way to influence stakeholders (Malhotra & Malhotra, 2016). What these arguments indicate is that leadership is as much about the ability to communicate and connect effectively with others as it is with anything else.
Influence is highly important when it comes to contemporary leadership because it impacts the way leaders motivate workers, empower them and get them to achieve their potential. Leadership is about having the ability to motivate people and guide them to the well-defined goals that have been set before them. Unless goals and objectives are clearly identified and a pathway to achieve them is laid out, it is very difficult for workers to feel like they know what they are doing or what they are working towards. So it is vital that leaders not only be able to motivate and guide but that they be able to communicate the vision of the end goal. This is the essence of effective influence in contemporary leadership. Indeed, communicating a vision is one of the central skills of transformational leadership (Bromley, 2007). For example, in an organization, a CEO will focus his team on a goal like increasing profitability. The vision is laid out—this is where the organization wants to go, and then it is explained how the organization can get there. That is step one. Step two is motivating the people, which requires an intimate understanding of them, how they think, what they need, and how to reach them. As Maslow (1943) points out in his hierarchy of needs and theory of human motivation, the pinnacle of the needs hierarchy is self-actualization, but to get there people need their lower levels needs satisfied first, such as shelter, food, a sense of belonging, love, esteem, self-respect and so on. Once those needs have been satisfied the individual will be self-motivated. Most leaders want to be surrounded with self-motivated workers, but this is not always possible so a great leader is able to find out what each worker needs and then support them so that they can reach their full potential.
The role of the middle leader, however, is going to be different from that of a CEO. The middle leader is situated between the individuals on the front lines and the higher-up leaders responsible for making broader decisions, such as those regarding policy or guidelines, etc. Thus, while the CEO will often wear multiple hats and assume roles within the Thinking, Action and Social categories of the Belbin model, the middle leader is less likely to have to assume so many roles because the nature of the work and position is different (Fleming, 2019).
Shanks and Buchbinder (2012) state that “leadership development includes both formal and informal efforts” (p. 279). The big value to look for workers who can be developed into leaders is communication: Communication is the number one competency needed for leaders (Ruben & Gigliotti, 2017). Workers who can be developed into leaders will typically have strong communication skills. They will be interested in talking to others and in sharing and obtaining information. They will show a willingness to want to learn more. To find them managers need to conduct both formal and informal assessments. This means they need to observe workers and note how they behave and they should also survey them to obtain more data on their thought processes and actions when managers are not there to observe. Promoting leaders from within and turning teachers into senior teachers depends upon the ability to assess teachers who show the right kind of skills for the role expected of them in a middle leadership position. Thus, as Harris et al. (2019) point out, there is a need to better understand what roles stakeholders expect of middle leaders and what roles teachers and senior teachers are demonstrating.
21 Laws of Leadership
An interesting correlation between Team Roles in the Belbin model and leadership can be had through an examination of Maxwell’s (1998) 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, which looks at how to win over followers and identifies 21 specific factors that make great leaders. Some of it is ability, some of it is influence, some of it is the adherence to the process of development, and some of it is vision. There are several other factors as well and Maxwell (1998) spends a chapter on each one, providing anecdotal evidence to support his points.
Each of the laws that Maxwell (1998) identifies and discusses are well worthy of a leader. Some of the other laws include the notion that leaders should be stronger than their followers because followers want to follow someone who is greater or stronger than themselves. In the context of Belbin’s Team Roles, it can be seen that the three spheres of Roles—Thinking, Action, and Social—all relate in some way to a leader making decisions and facilitating followers or subordinates or colleagues in their work in some way. Role players have to be able to focus on a specific goal, whether it is closing out a task, or appointing the right man for the job. Maxwell (1998) argues that leaders tend to be intuitive—at least all the great ones do, and his point in making that argument is to show that leaders should not over-think what they do, especially if they are in Action Roles. They tend to be the decision makers.
However, it is also quite likely that leaders have to have a high degree of intelligence and information upon which they can base their ideas and decisions. To emphasize this point Maxwell (1998) describes the intuition of Norman Schwarzkopf. Schwarzkopf could be considered both a classic ME Team Role player and an SH Team Role player. The point is that he embodied the necessary skills for his position, which is the underlying argument of both Maxwell (1998) and Belbin. Leaders tend to attract others like themselves, so if a leader is devious he will attract devious followers. If he is ethical he will attract an ethical following. Middle leaders in Hong primary and secondary schools are promoted from within and typically follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. Thus, it is unlikely that there is to be found much deviation in the form of the non-senior teachers and the senior teachers in Hong Kong’s schools. Understanding whether there needs to be more development, however, is essential because stakeholders may have different expectations of their teachers once they are promoted. As Maxwell (1998) indicates, leaders are relational and have to know how to connect with others in meaningful ways, which is why they are put in leadership positions in the first place: they have to be sure to win over as many followers as possible. Leaders also tend to have an Inner Circle that helps to propel them forward and to the next level, according to Maxwell (1998). This is an important consideration to keep in mind because it suggests that within Hong Kong schools there may be a bit of bias in determining who is promoted, and that may in turn impact the degree to which middle leaders meet stakeholder expectations.
A good point that Maxwell (1998) makes is that leaders have to be secure enough to give power to others. In fact this coincides with one of Belbin’s Team Roles—the Coordinator. The Coordinator is one who is able to delegate power effectively and does not just give power to others but does so in a meaningful and positive way. The Coordinator gives roles and assignments to those individuals best suited for the tasks. This is essentially the argument that Maxwell (1998) makes about leaders: they must be able to delegate wisely. Leaders who are micro-managers will never succeed long term because they do not empower others but rather try to control them. This type of leadership goes against the grain of what Belbin’s Team Role circle is all about. The purpose of the Belbin model is to show how every role player is important and how no one type of leadership is above another. An environment in which there is no trust and no legitimate use of authority, however, is one that could lead to failure. That is not the recipe for a healthy, functioning team. Leaders aim instead to develop other leaders, which is very much the case in Hong Kong school systems: teachers are promoted from within frequently. Leaders also enable others to buy into their person first and foremost and then they motivate them to buy into the vision. To what degree this could be important in the Belbin model may be something that needs to be explored in more detail.
Finding a way to win, tapping into where the momentum is heading, prioritizing to make action meaningful and knowing when other actions are meaningless and wasteful—all these are qualities of a leader in Maxwell’s (1998) opinion, and none of them are wrong. Also, knowing when to lead and knowing how to lead followers as well as other leaders is essential to growth. Finally, a leader has to have a worthy successor and picking the successor is part of what makes the legacy of the leader.
Overall, true leadership is not something that can be contained in a simple statement or book. Leadership is complex and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to it (Northouse, 2016). As Stogdill (1948) notes there are many different personal factors that can be associated with leadership, from personality traits to background to experience and so on. Every leader is going to be unique, however, and appropriate for the situation in which he is in. Leaders do not necessarily have to fit a mold. There can be servant leaders like Christ or there can authoritarian leaders like Franco. There can democratic leaders like politicians or there can be charismatic leaders like Richard Branson. There can be transformational leaders and authentic leaders. There can be leaders of all shapes and sizes because leadership is not something that can be defined simply. However, one thing that all types and styles of leadership do have in common is that they empower others at some level (Conger, 1989). That above all else is what best characterizes leadership, and Maxwell (1998) shows that in his book.
Authoritative leadership, for instance, is also known as visionary leadership and it is best summed up in the two words: “Follow me.” The authoritative leader presents himself as the example for others to follow, but he also takes the time to explain what he is doing and how he is doing it. The Authoritative leader is different from the autocratic leader in that the latter mainly gives orders (which are needed) without giving the example. The Authoritative leader sets the stage for how to act by leading the way personally. Situational leadership is a style of leadership that focuses on adapting to the needs of the environment and the organization. Situational leaders have to be good at communicating, and they have to be flexible and capable of identifying the needs of any given situation quickly and thoroughly (Hersey & Blanchard, 1977).
In summation, the literature shows that the Belbin model has clear cut roles for each middle leader and these should be part of the whole concept of management. Leaders have to be communicators, but they also have to be decision makers. They also have to be confident and have the power to attract. Followers will not believe in them if they do not represent in their own persons the kind of power that they wish to project. In order for middle leaders to emerge and to demonstrate the right kind of Role behaviors expected of them, it is important that they be promoted for a reason related to leadership and role behavior and not out of bias or because there is a tendency in the organization to simply promote those who are next in line. To better understand whether these are issues in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools, this study may help.
Methodology
The main focus was to compare the top team role of senior teachers and non-senior teachers. In total, 321 teachers in Hong Kong made up the sample: 238 were senior teachers and 83 were non-senior teachers. The sample of senior teachers came from participants of a 5-week full-time refresher training course for serving senior leaders from primary and secondary schools. They received government paid substitute teachers to release them to join the course during school time and they voluntarily joined the course.
A survey was conducted using Belbin’s Job Roles analysis, which involved an administration of Belbin Interplace Analysis to 321 in-service school teachers including 238 middle leaders who attended the 5-week Middle Leader Training Programme to find out their top team roles. Analyses then examined (a) possible job role expectations associated with middle leaders, (b) the actual tendencies of serving middle leaders’ team roles in school, and (c) any relationships between the job expectations and the actual team roles.
The results were recorded in an Excel table (Appendix 1) and refer to the actual behavior teachers exhibits. Two surveys were conducted per individual teacher: the Belbin Self-Perception Inventory (SPI) and Observer Checklist; both were completed online. The SPI was answered by the teachers themselves, and each participant had to indicate what they will do from six lists of variables. The second was the Observer Checklist, and each teacher had to invite at least 5 (some 6) colleagues with whom they worked and who were familiar enough with them that they could complete an observer checklist. The checklist listed out 27 negative character attributes, from absent-minded to uninvolved with specifics, and asked the respondent to checkmark those characteristics exhibited by the teacher identified by name at the top of the checklist. Thus, the results of the survey ranked the teachers using 9 team roles, and in the Excel table the top three are listed. These are not the preferred roles but the Team Roles they actually exhibit.
Data on the preferred or expected roles was obtained from the additional survey of 3268 stakeholders from 112 schools in Hong Kong. Stakeholders consisted of principals, senior teachers, teachers, parents and other school workers. They were asked what they saw as the most important job role requirement for senior teachers from among the 9 Team Roles.
Chi-square goodness of fit test was conducted to see whether senior teachers were demonstrating the variable of senior leadership and Team Role exhibited.
Limitations of the methodology include the sample, which was not randomized and the design, which did not allow for a control. This study was primarily conducted to ascertain the expectations of stakeholders for middle leaders in terms of role behaviors and to see what role behaviors teachers were demonstrating. Future research may be required to address these limitations.
Findings
1164 stakeholders surveyed (35.62%) identified ME as the top Team Role expected of senior teachers. Yet only 43 senior teachers at the workshop (18.07%) demonstrated ME in their leadership behaviors. Only 9.64% of non-senior teachers demonstrated this behavior.
IMP was the second most expected top Team Role among 1075 stakeholders surveyed (32.88%). Yet 23.11% of senior teachers demonstrated this Team Role behavior, more than any other Team Role behavior. 40.96% of non-senior teachers demonstrated this Team Role behavior, far more than any other Team Role behavior. IMP was the most commonly demonstrated Team Role behavior among all teachers with 27.73% of the overall sample exhibiting this role.
The third most expected Team Role was CO with 806 stakeholders (24.66% of the sample) identifying it as most important. Yet only 4.62% of senior teachers surveyed exhibited this Team Role, and only 1.2% of non-senior teachers exhibited the role. Overall, it was the least common Team Role behavior demonstrated by all the teachers together at just 3.74%.
The top three Team Role behaviors exhibited by senior teachers were: 1) IMP at 27.73%, 2) TW at 17.76%, and 3) ME at 15.89%.
The top three Team Role behaviors exhibited by non-senior teachers were: 1) IMP at 40.96%, 2) TW at 18.07%, and ME at 9.64%.
These findings indicate that there is not a great deal of difference between the top Team Role behaviors exhibited between senior and non-senior teachers, and yet that top Team Role behaviors expected of senior leaders are: 1) ME, IMP, and CO, with over 90% of those stakeholders surveyed identifying these three Team Roles as the most important for senior teachers to possess.
Most teachers holding middle positions have a tendency to demonstrate particular team roles, namely, Implementer, Monitor Evaluator and Team Worker. There is a consistent relation with the survey results and their job requirements. Results also revealed that the difference between primary and secondary school teachers was insignificant.
Null Hypotheses
H0:  There is no difference between senior teachers’ demonstrated Team Role behaviors and stakeholders’ expected Team Role behaviors for senior teachers.
Expected values were:
1. ME from 1164 stakeholders, 35.62%
2. IMP from 1075 stakeholders, 32.88%
3. CO from 806 stakeholders, 24.66%
Observed values were:
1. IMP from 55 senior teachers, 23.11%
2. ME from 43 senior teachers, 18.07%
3. TW from 42 senior teachers, 17.65%
The chi-square test for goodness of fit was conducted using these variables. The ?2 value was 13.057112655187474 and p value was 0.0014611136974274075; thus, the null hypothesis was rejected and it is concluded that there is a significant difference between the expectations of stakeholders and demonstrated Team Role behaviors of senior teachers.
When the test was conducted using the top four observed and expected Team Role behaviors from the two survey samples, the Chi Square was 27.83551399.


IMP
ME
TW
CO

Observed
23.11
18.07
17.65
4.62

Expected
32.88
35.62
0
24.66

Differences
-9.77
-17.55
17.65
-20.04







(Differences)^2
95.4529
308.0025
311.5225
401.6016

Diff^2/Expected
2.903068735
8.64689781
0
16.28554745







Chi Square
27.83551399






H0:  There is no difference between senior teachers and non-senior teachers’ demonstrating the expected Team Role behaviors.
The difference between senior teachers and non-senior teachers’ demonstrated Team Role behaviors was not significant, as each showed the same top three roles, with non-senior teachers showing 13% more IMP than senior teachers and 6% less ME being the only discernible differences among the top three roles exhibited. These differences are, however, significant—but when compared to the expected roles of senior teachers it suggests that both non-senior and senior teachers are failing to meet expectations.
Discussion
What is most interesting to note is that stakeholders’ top three expected Team Roles consisted of one Thinking Role (ME), one Action Role (IMP), and one Social Role (CO). Moreover, these expectations accounted for the vast majority of responses from stakeholders, with virtually each role receiving nearly a third of the vote. From the expectations of stakeholders it is apparent that middle leaders, i.e., senior teachers, should be balanced and demonstrate Team Roles from all three spheres of the Role circle: they should be thinking, acting, and socially adept leaders.
Also interesting is that senior leaders’ top three leading Team Role behaviors demonstrated consisted of one Action Role (IMP), one Thinking Role (ME) and one Social Role (TW) in that order of most exhibited to least. But whereas stakeholders believed that the strongest Team Role behavior should be a Thinking Role—Monitor Evaluator, senior teachers demonstrated an Action Role (Implementer) the most.
Whereas stakeholders also preferred to see a Coordinator Team Role from the Social category, what middle leaders in the schools actually demonstrated was the Team Worker Social Role. The distinction here is one of the more important to consider because of the difference between Coordinator and Team Worker Roles. The Coordinator is meant to be mature, confident and capable of identifying talent. The Coordinator has to be able to identify and clarify goals and display effective leadership skills. The Coordinator also has to be able to delegate authority, which requires a rather authoritarian leadership style at times because of the need for strong decision making skills.
The Team Worker on the other hand is more cooperative, perceptive and diplomatic. Team Workers tend to have democratic leadership styles rather than authoritarian styles. They are good listeners and tend to avoid friction and conflict.
However, stakeholders showed that they want a leader in middle leadership who is not afraid to make decisions and who, moreover, will make good decisions about who will be put in charge of certain tasks and assignments under them. Coordinators are wanted more than Team Workers—but senior teachers in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools tend to display Team Worker skills more than any Coordinator skills. This is likely a spillover effect from their time as non-senior teachers, because as the survey of non-senior teachers showed, only slightly more than 1% showed any Coordinator Team Role behaviors, while more than 18% showed Team Worker behaviors—roughly the same amount as senior teachers. This indicates that when they are promoted, teachers are carrying the same Team Role behaviors that they used in their non-senior level jobs into middle leadership positions instead of adopting the expected Team Role behaviors that stakeholders require of them.
It may be that senior teachers believe that a leadership role may lead to the requirement of more of an ME role. The nature of the work of teachers might be the reason, on the one hand, that they are promoted, i.e., because they possess the attributes that are required in the senior post; and, on the other hand, the position requires such attributes, so they also retain their Monitor Evaluator Team Role behaviors. They also remain Implementers for the same reason. However, they tend more to demonstrate IMP than ME, while stakeholders believe they should show more ME than IMP. This too is telling.
Stakeholders want leaders who are able to think strategically and make the right decisions. That is why they want middle leaders to demonstrate strong ME behaviors. They also want them to be Implementers but at a lesser level. They first and foremost want to see ME behaviors.
Middle leaders are leaders who have to think about the various professionals, services, and organizational structures and objectives under their care. The secret to an administrator’s success is structure and being able to empower others. In fact, empowerment is essential to leadership: it is about helping others to reach their potential, develop their skills and work to the fullest scope of their practice and training.
To be effective as an administrator, one must possess a range of skills. For instance, in times such as in the course of an emergency, there may be a need to use an autocratic leadership style to guarantee the safety and security of one’s staff. However, one of the most important skills of a leader in any situation, is the ability to respect diversity, which can be defined as the unique variations existing among persons with respect to gender, sex, race, religion, age, etc.  Workplace diversity is basically a fact of life in today’s globalized world and so cultural awareness is a must. Are Hong Kong middle leaders able to demonstrate cultural sensitivity in their positions? According to stakeholder expectations, middle leaders should be able to evaluate a situation and make the right strategic decisions based on the resources available to them, including human capital.
Middle leaders in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools show a tendency to be Implementers first and foremost. They are practical, reliable and efficient. And yet stakeholders appear to want more than that from their leaders. They want senior teachers who are capable of making the right decisions when it comes to putting others in charge.