Findings and discussion
This study shows that the three types of leadership practices adopted by the Hong Kong KG principals
are closely correlated to one another as the correlation coefficients are all significant at the .01
level. This may reflect the fact that these principals try their best by all means to get things done: theydo not rely solely on exercising their reward power, even though they enjoy much more flexibility in
doing so. The chi-square test also reveals that the majority of KG teachers gave the highest mean
rating to Empowerment and participation in their perceptions of their principals’ leadership. However,
this does not imply that the KG principals have changed from transactional leadership to distributed
leadership in managing their schools as the ANOVA analysis showed no significant
difference in the mean values of the respondents’ perceptions of their principals’ leadership practices.
Also, 48 respondents gave the same highest mean rating of their principals to more than one type of
leadership style. Nevertheless, this survey shows a scenario about the management practices of KG
principals which is different from that in Ho’s 2006 study, where the process of exercising school
leadership in kindergartens took a highly centralized form, although there was delegation of some
tasks and responsibilities (Ho, 2010a). This study reveals that most of the KG teachers perceived
their principals as tending more to practising Empowerment and participation, and Reward and
recognition and Role modelling and shared vision were also used in managing their schools.