The Nordic perspective on the association between distributed leadership and teacher job satisfaction: A multilevel SEM approach

Abstract

In this study, we address the lack of robust empirical evidence on the association between distributed leadership and teacher job satisfaction with the work environment in the Nordic countries by examining this relationship at the teacher and school levels, for both teachers and principals. We also explore how teachers’ shared perceptions of distributed leadership are associated with individual job satisfaction (i.e., contextual effects), surpassing the limitations of the single-level analyses. Using data from 11,788 teachers in 654 schools who participated in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2018 in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, we found a strong positive association between teacher job satisfaction with the work environment and teacher-reported distributed leadership at the school level, and a moderately strong association at the teacher level. In contrast, we found a negative contextual effect which suggested that stronger distributed leadership at the school level was associated with lower satisfaction of individual teacher in Norway and Finland. Additionally, principal-reported distributed leadership was weakly, positively associated with teacher job satisfaction with the work environment only in Sweden. This study shows mixed results: at the teacher level, stronger distributed leadership has potential to enhance job satisfaction, while at the school level, it can be linked to lower individual teacher satisfaction as shown in Norway and Finland. Our study further highlights the distinction between teacher- and principal-reported distributed leadership, as well as individual- and shared-teacher perceptions, and their potential differential effects on job satisfaction.