{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,10]],"date-time":"2026-09-10T06:06:57Z","timestamp":1789020417584,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,10]],"date-time":"2026-09-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788998400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Aesthetic leadership emphasizes the experiential dimensions of leadership processes, including sensory engagement, emotion, embodied presence, and symbolic expression. Its focus differs from that of transformational leadership, which primarily emphasizes visionary inspiration, and from school climate research, which centers on shared perceptions of the organizational environment. However, although emerging evidence has linked perceived principals\u2019 aesthetic leadership with teacher professional development in Chinese high schools, the experiential processes and psychological boundary conditions underlying this association remain insufficiently understood. In China\u2019s highly structured school governance context, where principals play a central role in interpreting policy and organizing teachers\u2019 work, aesthetic leadership may be especially relevant because it addresses how leadership is experienced emotionally and symbolically in everyday school life. Using cross-sectional self-report questionnaire data from 611 high school teachers in Hainan Province, China, this study examined the association between perceived principals\u2019 aesthetic leadership (AL) and teacher professional development (TPD), the statistical indirect role of aesthetic experience (AE), and the conditional role of psychological empowerment (PE). AMOS was used to examine the latent-variable mediation relationship, while SPSS PROCESS Model 59 was employed to estimate interaction terms and conditional indirect effects within a unified observed-variable framework. AL was significantly and positively associated with both TPD and AE, and AE was positively associated with TPD. The statistical indirect association between AL and TPD through AE was significant. PE did not significantly moderate the AL\u2013AE association. However, the AL\u202f\u00d7\u202fPE interaction in predicting TPD was significantly positive, whereas the AE\u202f\u00d7\u202fPE interaction was significantly negative. As PE increased, the conditional direct association between AL and TPD became stronger, whereas the AE\u2013TPD association and the conditional indirect association became weaker. For school principals and teacher professional development organizers, the findings suggest combining transparent management with meaning-centered communication and autonomy-supportive professional learning activities. Given the single-wave self-report design, these findings represent statistical associations and cannot establish temporal ordering or causal mechanisms.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2026.1846303","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,10]],"date-time":"2026-09-10T05:30:54Z","timestamp":1789018254000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Perceived principals\u2019 aesthetic leadership and teacher professional development: the roles of aesthetic experience and psychological empowerment among Chinese high school teachers"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Zehe","family":"Yin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Design, Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology","place":["Haikou, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yuancheng","family":"Chang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Chinese International College, Dhurakij Pundit University","place":["Bangkok, Thailand"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fengde","family":"Qian","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Design, Nanjing Tech University","place":["Nanjing, China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Weixin","family":"Lin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Design, Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology","place":["Haikou, China"]},{"name":"Chinese International College, Dhurakij Pundit University","place":["Bangkok, Thailand"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kexiu","family":"Fang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Chinese International College, Dhurakij Pundit University","place":["Bangkok, Thailand"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","first-page":"33","article-title":"Transformation of instructional practice through aesthetic experiences","volume":"6","author":"Albers","year":"2019","journal-title":"Glob. 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