DOI: 10.30828/real.1865188 ISSN: 2564-7261

How Instructional Leadership Influences Teachers’ Innovative Work Behavior: Understanding the Mediating Role of Teacher Commitment and Professional Collaboration

Erhan Dolapcı, Feyzi Uluğ
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This study investigates how principals’ instructional leadership influences teachers’ innovative work behavior, with teacher commitment and teacher professional collaboration as mediating mechanisms. Drawing on a cross-sectional survey of 812 teachers working in public schools in Türkiye, structural equation modelling with bootstrapping was employed to examine the direct and indirect effects of instructional leadership. The results indicate that instructional leadership has significant positive effects on both teacher commitment and teacher professional collaboration, which in turn enhance teachers’ innovative work behavior. Furthermore, the findings show that the mediating effects of teacher commitment and teacher professional collaboration are stronger than the direct effect of instructional leadership, underscoring their central role in linking school leadership practices with teachers’ innovative work behavior. By providing empirical evidence from a centralized education system, this study extends the international literature on instructional leadership and teacher innovation. The findings contribute theoretically by clarifying the mechanisms through which principals foster teachers’ innovative work behavior, and practically by offering insights for school leaders and policymakers seeking to cultivate teacher collaboration, strengthen commitment, and stimulate innovative work behavior in schools.

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