Evaluating the Link Between Distributed Leadership, School Innovative Climate, and Teacher Job Satisfaction: A Doubly Latent Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling Approach

This study aims to examine the association between distributed leadership and teacher job satisfaction and the extent to which this relationship is mediated by school innovative climate. A large-scale international sample of 153,682 lower secondary teachers (ISCED level 2) from the TALIS 2018 data was analyzed, using doubly latent multilevel structural equation modeling. Results indicated that teachers' perceived school innovative climate partially mediated the association between perceived distributed leadership and teacher satisfaction with school and fully mediated the association between distributed leadership and teacher satisfaction with profession. The results highlight the important role of school leaders in creating a mutually responsible and shared decision-making school culture in which teachers feel safe and empowered to embrace innovations and changes, which is in turn associated with higher job satisfaction. The findings also underscore the need to examine teacher job satisfaction as a multidimensional construct as different aspects of teacher job satisfaction are differentially related to school leadership practices and school innovative climate.