University Transformational Leadership Implementation Affecting Teachers’ Performance in a Technology University in China

: This study explores the implementation of transformational leadership by school administrators and its multifaceted relationship with teacher performance as perceived by the teachers. The research assesses the profile of teacher respondents, their evaluation of transformational leadership practices, variations in assessments based on demographic factors, and their teaching performance according to recent evaluations. The study reveals that transformational leadership is moderately implemented by administrators, with inspirational motivation being the most frequently observed aspect (mean value of 3.33), while management-by-exception is the least observed (mean value of 2.66). Teachers' perceptions of leadership implementation did not significantly differ based on sex, age, educational attainment, or teaching experience. The majority of teachers demonstrated excellent (45.2%) to outstanding (38.2%) performance in recent evaluations. Although a very weak relationship was found between most aspects of transformational leadership and teacher performance, the study concludes that transformational leadership practices, excluding management-by-exception and intellectual stimulation, can positively influence teacher performance. Based on these findings, recommendations include promoting continuous learning, providing mentorship, acknowledging achievements, and fostering collaboration among teachers to enhance their professional growth and school effectiveness.


Introduction
Whenever changes happen in leadership in an educational institution, it normally affects a particular certain area in the school or the least the teachers and students.Any changes in the leadership is expected to draw some effect on the major stakeholders, the teachers and students.In this study, the researcher is interested in determining the effect of the transformational leadership implementation in the university to the performance of the teachers.
The conduct of a person who directs the activity of a group toward a common purpose has been defined as leadership.The primary responsibilities of a leader are influencing group activity and adapting to change.A challenge when examining the leadership of workers is that the majority of leadership theories were created within a corporate framework and then applied to leadership.When used in a school environment, published research provides little evidence that such leadership efforts are related with gains in patient care or organizational results (Abdulaziz, 2018).
According to Barnes (2019), there is no one appropriate strategy when it comes to leadership styles in education.Effective leadership in education requires changing one's leadership style to the circumstances.An advanced degree in education, such as a Doctor of Education (EdD), is an excellent way for educators to learn various leadership styles that can make them more effective leaders in a variety of classroom settings and beyond, for instance as a dean, school district superintendent, or university president.Principals and other school leaders are the primary drivers of change in their schools.
To be successful, their leadership must be grounded in a moral purpose, an awareness of the nature of change, an atmosphere of information and sharing, an investment in relationships, and a commitment to fostering coherence.Effective leadership has a favorable impact on teacher work satisfaction and, eventually, student performance, making it a good objective to become a more capable education leader.Education Week reports that leaders have an indirect but significant impact on student outcomes when they ensure faculty members have access to the resources necessary to meet the demands of their work, provide direction and vision for the school, and provide opportunities for teachers' professional development.In addition, Forbes (2018) observes that successful education leaders recognize the presence of disadvantaged groups in education systems while demonstrating that this does not have to be an obstacle to success.When appropriate, they use testing to identify improvement possibilities inside the school, evaluate their own performance, and regard all stakeholders as partners.Tull (2018) states that there are options for enhancing the capacity of policymakers to become stronger leaders, but there is little evidence that specific training or courses result in significantly improved leadership and management skills.
As part of UK-LIC/LMIC partnership programs, it is argued that monthly intensive training and one-year fellowships with mentorship are the most effective types of capacity building processes to improve leadership skills in the health sector.Barlie (2016) remarked that mental health awareness is a crucial problem for all educators, who are sometimes the first line of defense for students.
Education experts have acknowledged the influence of a student's on learning and accomplishment, and they are aware that much can be done to assist kids with concerns.These instructors know that students' educational experiences are dependent not just on their interactions with individual teachers, but also on the school's and district's complex systems.This knowledge motivates these educators to effect change.They endure professional restlessness, which has been dubbed "leadership itch" by some.Sometimes on their own initiative and sometimes within a more formal framework, these professionals practice teacher leadership in a number of ways (Danielson, 2017).
According to Johnson and Cacioppe (2018), school leadership that mainly focuses on enhancing the quality of instruction has the greatest influence on student outcomes.Effective leadership of teaching and learning is essential for the future success of any school leader.Having a wide view of talent and cultivating a large pool of culturally and demographically varied individuals interested at all levels of school leadership adds to an increase in leadership capability.This approach acknowledges that leadership qualities are not set, can be acquired through time, and will result in a larger number of individuals assuming leadership positions.When principals and their leadership teams understand and respect their role in leadership development, they become crucial in identifying and cultivating future leaders.They should be encouraged to pursue leadership development inside and outside of their institutions.To ensure that this occurs, existing principals and school leaders should have focused professional learning experiences, and leadership development should be included into their performance and growth objectives.
School leaders are more than simply figures of power.They are moral figures as well.Great leaders have always imparted significant moral lessons via their beliefs and actions.These are persons of few words, yet the words they do say give others courage.This may seem lyrical, but it has some reality.Our school administrators are similar individuals.They may have distinct techniques, styles, and mentalities.Nonetheless, they all have some characteristics (Crockett, 2018).
Leadership is one of the oldest and most contentious kinds of school administration today.As a result, according to Castaneda (2017), when leadership is most required, many prospective instructional leaders reject leadership chances, and experienced school administrators often seek transfers to other forms of educational employment.Early development of leadership qualities is an excellent method to prepare the road for success.Leaders are essential at all organizational levels.Principals spend a significant amount of time communicating with people, the bulk of which is face-to-face interaction.People, whether bosses, coworkers, or subordinates, may make or break a school head's career.If they fail to interact properly with others, their jobs may suffer.Each staff member is required to contribute as much as possible to the school's efforts to deliver a high-quality, up-todate education under the direction of the school's principal.Requirements for leadership skills at all organizational levels highlight that leaders may become better leaders, in part because skills reflect developable capacities.These things have something to do with the performance of the teachers in the university.

Significance of the Study
The evaluation of the level of transformational leadership implementation and its multifaceted relationships with teacher performance which was used for the creation of a leadership guide for use in schools.The following shall benefit from this study: Administrators/School Heads.The school administrators will benefit from the study because of enhanced programs, trainings and seminars that focuses on management skills beyond the curriculum.Programs about these newer workplace modalities may be reviewed to become much more aligned to the demands of the 21st Century education especially since the pandemic thrust modern and more progressive views into the spotlight.
Teachers.The results of the study are directly usable by the teachers in such a way that would allow them to adjust and modify their practices accordingly to enable them to more effectively teach as regards their own degree of communication and interaction with the administrators involved.
Students.Educational programs will always have the welfare of the students in mind as the ultimate goal.The students would therefore benefit from the product of this study because said product aims to streamline the educational processes by which students are able to undergo learning.
Researchers.The results of the study may be used as further reference for similar studies in different locales, or more indepth studies on the same subject matter.This shall guide them in crafting a similar study in the future with the different scope and focus of participants.

Definition of Terms
The following terminologies are operationally defined as follows: Authentic Leadership: The quality of a leader that describes how genuine he is in terms of dealing with his subordinates.
Contingent Reward: This is operationally defined as a motivation-based system that is used to reward those that meet their identified goals by providing positive reinforcement for a job well done.
Emotional Intelligent Leadership: The quality of a leader that describes how well he is able to understand the emotional aspect of the workplace environment and deal with it accordingly and appropriately.
Idealized Influence: This refers to having transformational leaders who behave in ways that result in their being role models for their followers.
Inspirational Motivation: This is operationally defined as the leader's ability to inspire confidence, motivation and a sense of purpose in his followers.
Leadership Implementation: The qualities inherent to a person that allows him to command the respect of the followers in such a way that fear is not used to elicit obedience, and in such a way that followers remain motivated.
Management by Exception: This will be operationally defined as identifying and handling cases that deviate from the norm, recommended as best practice by the project management method.
Relational Leadership: This refers to the more professional application of the emotional intelligent leadership of the leaders.
Transformational Leadership: This refers to the leadership quality of a leader which emphasizes his focus on the development of his followers.
Extra Effort: This refers to efforts beyond typical responsibilities.It includes motivating others to exceed expectations, fostering self-improvement, creating a positive work environment, and emphasizing shared goals.Leaders inspire team members to go above and beyond in achieving organizational objectives and vision.
Intellectual stimulation: This refers to a leadership behavior associated with transformational leadership.It involves encouraging followers to think creatively, challenge assumptions, and explore new ideas and perspectives.Leaders who engage in intellectual stimulation foster an environment where followers feel empowered to question the status quo, innovate, and seek continuous improvement.This approach inspires intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills among followers, ultimately driving organizational innovation and growth.
Individualized consideration: This is a concept within transformational leadership that involves leaders recognizing and addressing the unique needs, strengths, and aspirations of each follower.It emphasizes personalized attention and support, where leaders take the time to understand and empathize with individual concerns and circumstances.This leadership approach involves providing coaching, mentoring, and development opportunities tailored to each follower's abilities and interests.By treating each follower as an individual and catering to their specific needs, leaders who practice individualized consideration can foster trust, loyalty, and commitment among their team members, ultimately enhancing overall performance and satisfaction.
Effectiveness: This refers to how well an organization or team meets its goals.It assesses the impact of a leader's style and behaviors on team performance, employee satisfaction, and organizational development.Effectiveness is measured through metrics like organizational and employee performance, customer satisfaction, and innovation.Effective leaders inspire employees, foster teamwork, and encourage innovation to achieve organizational goals.

Results and Discussions
The gathered data are presented here with the analysis and interpretation according to the statement of the problem.The profile of teacher respondents in terms of sex, age, educational attainment, and length of teaching experience, their assessments on the extent of school transformational leadership implementation of the administrators, differences in their assessments when profile is taken as test factor, their teaching performance, and the relationship between the extent of transformational leadership implementation and the teachers' performance are hereby presented with the end view of the proposed leadership guide.
1) Demographic Profile of the Respondents Table 1 presents the frequency distribution of the teacher respondents' profile in terms of sex, age, educational attainment, and length of teaching experience.
Sex. Two hundred sixty five (265) or 70.1% of the student respondents are male while one hundred thirteen (113) or 29.9% are female.This goes to show that majority of the student respondents are male.
Sex.One hundred sixty three (163) or 43.6% of the teacher respondents are male, while two hundred eleven (211) or 56.4% are female.The result shows that majority of the teacher respondents are female.
Age. Seventy seven (77) or 20.6% of the teacher respondents are 30 years old and below, one hundred forty one (141) or 37.7% are 31-40 years old, one hundred five (105) or 28.1% are 41-50 years old, and fifty one (51) or 13.6% are 51-60 years old.This goes to show that most of the teacher respondents are within the age group of not more than forty years old.Length of Teaching Experience.Ninety six (96) or 25.7% of the teacher respondents are teaching for less than 5 years, one hundred twenty (120) or 32.1% for about 5-10 years, thirty nine (39) or 10.4% for about 11-15 years, seventy four (74) or 19.8% for 16-20 years, and forty five (45) or 12.0% for more than 20 years.The result shows that most of the teacher respondents have been in the teaching profession for not more than ten years.

Conclusion
Based from the findings of the study, the researcher came up with the following conclusions: Teachers are mostly female of middle age with above minimum academic qualifications and have been in the teaching profession for not more than ten years.
Teachers have seen their administrators to moderately implement transformational leadership which emphasizes their focus on the development of their teachers/subordinates.
Teachers have relatively the same assessments on how their administrators implement transformational leadership in the school regardless of their sex, age, educational attainment, and years of teaching experience.
Teachers generally exhibited outstanding to excellent teaching performance based on the most recent evaluation.
It can be said that the teachers' teaching performance can somehow be influenced by how the administrators implement transformational leadership.However, it can be noted that management-by-exception, and intellectual stimulation did not make significant impact on the teachers' performance.

Recommendations
Based on the conclusions derived in this study, the following are the recommendations: Encourage continuous learning by emphasizing the importance of lifelong learning and professional development among teachers, and supporting ongoing training and growth opportunities to help them stay updated with best practices and trends in education.
Provide mentorship and support to teachers to help them grow personally and professionally thereby creating a supportive environment where teachers fee valued, respected and empowered to succeed.
Acknowledge the hard work and accomplishments of teachers, students, and staff members to boost morale and reinforce a positive school climate.
Promote collaboration by encouraging open dialogue, ideasharing, and collective problem solving among teachers and encourage a culture of innovation and adaptability that enables the school to evolve and improve over time.
Solicit feedback from teachers and other stakeholders and make reflections on the leadership practices to identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to enhance effectiveness as a transformational leader.

Table 1 .
Frequency Distribution of Respondents' Profile 5% are Master's degree holders, and one hundred fourteen (114) or 30.5% are Doctoral degree holders.The result indicates that majority of the teacher respondents are Master's degree holders.