The relationship between transformational leadership and teacher autonomy: A latent moderation analysis

Abstract

In Chinese kindergartens under a collectivist culture, leadership has a profound and complex impact on both the organization and teacher autonomy. This study explores the link between transformational leadership and teacher autonomy and the roles played by organizational climate and teacher empowerment in this relationship. Kindergartens teachers (n = 1593) were randomly selected in China to complete the transformational leadership scale, teacher autonomy scale, teacher empowerment scale and organizational climate scale, with a cross-sectional design and moderated mediation model using latent variables. The results were as follows: (1) transformational leadership can predict the level of teacher autonomy; (2) organizational climate plays a part of mediating role between transformational leadership and teacher autonomy; (3) as levels of teacher empowerment increase, the positive association between transformational leadership and organizational climate becomes stronger, while the positive association between organizational climate on teacher autonomy weakens.