Task-oriented counselors focus on completing routine administrative work as their core orientation, with a focus on procedural tasks such as notification communication, material organization, and crisis response. Their drive for development largely stems from external demands. In contrast, expert-style counselors are characterized by professional judgment, educational leadership, and reflective practice. They play an irreplaceable, central role in specialized domains including student ideological and political education, career development guidance, and psychological crisis intervention.

Task-oriented counselors primarily handle routine administration (e.g., notification communication, crisis response) with limited discretion, relying on procedural compliance. Expert-style counselors exercise professional judgment in ideological education, career guidance, and psychological intervention, autonomously designing educational strategies. Observable criteria include: primary responsibilities (administrative execution vs. specialized guidance), decision-making authority(supervisory approval vs. autonomous action), professional competencies (task completion vs. diagnostic expertise), and expected outcomes (procedural compliance vs. student growth and value formation).

In reality, the enactment of the counselor role in higher vocational colleges is beset by a number of structural dilemmas ([2]). First, the professional role has become diffuse: counselors’ responsibilities lack clear boundaries, and a vast array of non-professional tasks have been incorporated into their workload, giving rise to a cognitive inertia that “counselors can and should do everything”. Second, there is a severe imbalance between the volume of administrative tasks and professional practice. Counselors are mired in day-to-day management duties, leaving them unable to devote their limited energy to in-depth student counseling and ideological guidance. Third, narrow professional development pathways, blocked promotion channels, and the lack of tiered design in the training system have undermined counselors’ intrinsic motivation for professional growth. These dilemmas indicate that the reshaping of counselors’ roles is a necessary choice under the guidance of the spirit of educators and an urgent need to address practical issues.

The spirit of educators, with the ideal conviction of “having a grand commitment to the greater good and dedicating oneself to serving the nation” at its core, fundamentally answers the value inquiry of “why we teach”, injecting profound spiritual impetus into the role transformation of counselors. When counselors elevate their work from “completing job tasks” to the value height of “serving students’ growth and contributing to national development”, their role positioning no longer remains at the level of task executors, but advances toward becoming conscious constructors of educational meaning. This spiritual awakening at the value level constitutes the ideological foundation for initiating role transformation.

This argument of identity logic rests on the claim that students generally perceive counselors as administrators rather than educators. This perception stems from counselors’ long-standing role in routine task execution. While some students may acknowledge occasional educational guidance, the dominant cognitive schema remains administrative. Thus, the transition from “administrator” to “educator” is not merely semantic but reflects a necessary restructuring of professional identity under the spirit of educators. The moral integrity of “words serving as a role model and conduct setting a standard for society” reshapes counselors’ deep identification with their professional identity. The spirit of educators, however, relocates counselors into the identity sequence of “educators”, requiring them to influence students through moral strength and exemplary conduct ([4]). As their identity cognition undergoes a fundamental shift, counselors proactively shake off the role inertia of being “administrative appendages” and instead construct a professional identity centered on educational consciousness.

The educational wisdom of “enlightening minds and nourishing hearts, teaching students according to their aptitudes” and the diligent attitude of “studying diligently, acting with commitment, and pursuing truth with innovation” chart the course for the competence upgrade of counselors. To practice the spirit of educators, counselors must go beyond the superficial handling of routine tasks, delve into students’ inner spiritual world, and possess such professional capacities as ideological guidance, psychological counseling, and career planning. The systematic enhancement of these capacities enables counselors to shift from “task-oriented” to “expert-style”, turning “professional guidance” from a conceptual aspiration into actual practice.

The benevolent heart of “finding joy in teaching and loving students, being willing to dedicate oneself” and the pursuit of promoting the Way of cultivating people with a global vision provide counselors with a value coordinate system that transcends short-term performance and points toward long-term development. The spirit of educators takes “lifelong learning” as an inherent requirement and prompts counselors to develop a sustained consciousness of professional growth. This drives counselors from passively responding to post requirements to actively pursuing professional development, and from merely completing prescribed tasks to creatively conducting educational practices, ultimately achieving the sustainable advancement of role transformation.

The primary prerequisite for role reconstruction lies in a fundamental shift at the conceptual level. On the one hand, counselors must break free from the cognitive framework of being mere “task executors”, re-examine the educational nature and professional value of their work, and establish “teaching and educating” and “ideological guidance”—rather than “task completion” and “inspection response”—as the core purposes of their profession. On the other hand, higher vocational colleges should guide counselors to deeply understand the essence of the spirit of educators through thematic workshops, exemplar demonstration, and cultural cultivation, translating it into a value coordinate and a code of conduct in their daily work. Only by achieving an identity shift from “administrator” to “educator” at the deepest conceptual level can role reconstruction possess sustained intrinsic motivation.

The key support for shifting from “task-oriented” to “expert-style” lies in the systematic enhancement of capabilities. The core competencies of expert-style counselors should encompass three levels: first, the ability of ideological guidance, that is, the capacity to grasp students’ ideological trends and conduct effective ideological and political education; second, the ability of professional judgment, that is, the capacity to demonstrate professionalism in identifying, diagnosing, and intervening in students’ developmental issues; and third, the ability of practical reflection, that is, the awareness and capacity to continuously engage in self-examination and improvement in daily practice ([5]). Higher vocational colleges should accordingly build a tiered and classified training system, providing differentiated capability enhancement plans for counselors at various developmental stages, and driving their shift from experiential operation to professionalized practice.

The implementation of concepts and the enhancement of capabilities require effective institutional safeguards. First, clearly define the job responsibility boundaries of counselors, establish a diversion and collaboration mechanism for routine tasks, liberate counselors from non-professional affairs, and free up time and space for professional practice. Non-professional affairs to be reassigned include tuition fee collection (to Financial Office), routine data reporting (to Academic Affairs), and venue booking (to General Administration). These tasks, unrelated to ideological education or psychological guidance, should be transferred to specialized units, freeing counselors for expert-style roles. Second, improve the professional title evaluation and professional development channels for counselors, establish an evaluation criterion centered on educational effectiveness, and ensure that professional growth receives institutional recognition and incentives. Third, establish an assessment and guidance mechanism for practicing the spirit of educators, integrate the requirements of role transformation into the entire process of counselors’ professional development, and form an institutionalized and normalized synergy for advancement. Indicators for assessing institutional reconstruction include: protected time for student guidance (weekly hours freed from administrative tasks), participation in professional development (training sessions attended and certifications earned), and documented counseling outcomes (cases of ideological intervention or career guidance recorded). These metrics evaluate whether role transformation yields tangible educational effectiveness.

Role transformation is not merely self-renewal at the individual level; it relies even more on the overall support of the organizational ecology. Higher vocational colleges should build an educational ecology led by the spirit of educators from the perspective of cultural development: in organizational culture, they should champion the value orientation of “student-oriented and professional grounding”, and elevate counselors to a principal position in the educational system ([1]); in team building, they should foster teams of expert-style counselors to promote experience sharing and collaborative growth; in atmosphere cultivation, they should identify and publicize advanced exemplars of expert-style counselors, so as to form an organizational culture that respects professionalism and honors education. By nurturing individual growth through the power of ecology, role transformation is shifted from a passive requirement to a conscious pursuit.