Building communities, weaving trust: How principals transform participative leadership practices into teacher professional happiness in collectivism-oriented Confucian cultural context

Grounded in China’s collectivism-oriented Confucian cultural context, this study examines the mechanism through which participative leadership influences teacher professional happiness from the perspectives of Ecological Systems Theory and Social Capital Theory. Structural equation modeling analysis identified three significant pathways, including a direct positive effect of participative leadership on professional happiness, an indirect effect mediated solely by trust-based interpersonal climate, and a sequential mediation effect through professional learning communities followed by trust-based interpersonal climate. The findings demonstrate that Chinese school leadership practices uniquely combine community development and trust-building to synergistically enhance teacher professional happiness. This culturally-embedded mechanism also suggests that Confucian values may reconfigure participative leadership dynamics by emphasizing reciprocal interpersonal obligations and collective harmony in decision-making processes.