Principal–Teacher Relationship Profiles Moderating the Effects of Transformational Leadership on Teacher Innovation and Resistance to Change

Purpose: The present study sought to investigate how principal-teacher relationship patterns interact with transformational leadership to influence teachers’ innovativeness and resistance to change, drawing on the leader-member exchange theory. Method: Data were collected from 1005 teachers across 92 schools in Türkiye. Multilevel latent profile moderation analysis was conducted to reveal teacher-principal relationship profiles and how each profile moderates the associations between transformational leadership and teacher resistance to change, as well as transformational leadership and teacher innovativeness. Findings: Our findings revealed three teacher-principal relationship profiles within schools: cohesive, conflicting, and balancing, as well as two school profiles: cohesive schools and blended schools. Additionally, principal-teacher relationship profiles played a moderating role in the effects of transformational leadership on teacher innovativeness and resistance to change at both the school and individual levels. We found that transformational leaders were more effective in promoting teacher innovativeness and mitigating teacher resistance to change when they had a cohesive relationship with teachers. These associations were not significant in the case of conflicting or balancing relationships. At the school level, transformational leadership had a stronger association with teacher innovativeness if the school was characterized as cohesive rather than blended. However, transformational leadership was related to less resistance to change only in cohesive schools. Leadership remained ineffective in reducing resistance when a mixture of cohesive and conflicting teachers was present (in blended schools). Conclusion: Effective principal-teacher interactions serve as the foundation for transformational leadership to inspire innovation and reduce resistance to change within and across schools.