Distributed and relational leadership in teachers’ digital resources use: Evidence from Shanghai's high-accountability school context

Educational digitalization requires schools to translate institutional reform into teachers’ practice. Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory, this study examined the associations of distributed leadership (DL) and relational leadership (RL) with teachers’ digital resources use (DRU), and the mediating roles of teacher autonomy (TA) and digital resources use self-efficacy (DRUSE). Weighted TALIS 2024 data from 1364 Shanghai secondary school teachers were analyzed using complex-survey structural equation modelling and bootstrapping. In separate models, both leadership approaches had significant direct and indirect relationships with DRU. In the integrated model, DL retained a significant direct effect, whereas RL's direct and total effects were nonsignificant, although its indirect effects through TA, DRUSE and the sequential pathway remained significant. DL and RL differed significantly in their direct and total effects but not in their indirect effects. In Shanghai's high-accountability context, DL may be more closely connected with organizing digital reform, while RL is related to DRU primarily through teacher-level mechanisms. The strong correlation between DL and RL indicates potential multicollinearity when estimating their unique relationships. Because the data are cross-sectional, the results cannot establish temporal or causal ordering.