Linking empowering leadership to innovative behavior in professional learning communities: the role of psychological empowerment and team psychological safety

Abstract

This study investigates the mediating role of teachers’ psychological empowerment and the moderating role of team psychological safety in the relationship between empowering leadership and teachers’ innovative behavior in teaching and research groups (TR groups) as professional learning communities. In total, 507 teachers from 114 TR groups in China participated in this study. The multilevel model results show that empowering leadership improves teachers’ innovative behavior by increasing teachers’ psychological empowerment, which is not influenced by team psychological safety. A supplementary analysis shows that the relationship between team psychological safety and teachers’ innovative behavior is also mediated by psychological empowerment.