Background: The well-being of principals is critical for individual principals, schools, and society. However, current research mainly focuses on understanding and promoting principal well-being outcomes rather than well-being processes. Principal well-being literacy, a process-oriented well-being construct, is a ‘missing link’ in the current literature about principal well-being.

Aims: In addressing these gaps, this paper aims to investigate whether principal well-being literacy, as a mediator, buffers job resources (leadership support, role clarity) and job demands (e.g., workload and emotional demand) to promote principal well-being and job performance in the context of Hong Kong and Mainland China.

Method: This study surveyed a sample of 245 school principals from Hong Kong and Mainland China. About 71% of participants were female and 29% were male. Job demands included emotional demand and workload. The emotional demand was assessed using six items adopted from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, which includes six specific questions. Job resources consisted of leadership support (5 items) and role clarity (4 items). The two outcome variables were well-being literacy and job performance. The 6-item Well-being Literacy (Well-Lit 6) Scale was adopted.

Missing data were handled via the expectation–maximization algorithm in Mplus, and reliability analyses were used to measure the Cronbach’s coefficient of each variable. Second, structural equation modelling (SEM) was implemented to ascertain the three research questions. Five criteria were used to refine the models in the procedures: (1) the eigenvalues should be greater than 1.00; (2) factor loading of each item should be greater than 0.40; (3) at least three items should be involved in each conceptual factor; (4) cross-loadings for all items should be less than 0.30; and (5) all statistically non-significant predictor paths were dropped. Models were accepted if they met the following requirements: (1) SRMR and RMSEA were smaller than 0.08; and (2) confirmatory fit index (CFI) was greater than 0.90 (Marsh et al., 2004).

Result: A structural equation model was established in response to the research aim after testing all regression paths from four drivers, well-being literacy, well-being and job performance. The final structural model had a good model fit to the data (χ2 =1389.05; df=440; p < .01; CFI=.93; TLI=.91; RMSEA=.060; SRMR=0.051).

Implications: This paper has the following implications. First, the paper provides empirical insights to advance the theoretical framework on principal well-being by filling in the ‘black box’ (i.e., principal well-being literacy) between drivers and outcomes of principal well-being. Second, this paper enables policymakers to identify policy priorities to better craft related public policies for cultivating principal well-being literacy to establish well-being promotion schools in Hong Kong. In the long run, this project will help build well-being promotion education systems by making every school a well-being promotion school. This will be one step ahead of the OECD’s call for a ‘wellness society’ by enhancing public health in Hong Kong and beyond. Third, this paper produces a practical blueprint for supporting principal well-being literacy building, particularly as individual, institutional, and contextual drivers identified are malleable to future solution-focused interventions in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and beyond.

Keywords: Well-being literacy, school principal, job demand, and job resource.