Exploring the moral and distributive levers for teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between school leadership practices and teacher empowerment in the Finnish policy culture. Specifically, moral leadership and distributed leadership enacted by school principals are tested in a simultaneous design as predictor to two distinct yet related aspects of teachers’ sense of empowerment, respectively, in their work domain and their classroom domain. Design/methodology/approach – The study investigated a field sample of 246 individual teachers from ten Finnish primary schools. Hypotheses were developed and tested by structural equation modeling. Findings – The results indicate that moral leadership exerted by school principals support teachers’ sense of empowerment both in work domain and classroom domain. Distributed leadership, in the meaning of sharing instructional leadership tasks with teachers, supported work domain empowerment but did not predict classroom domain teacher empowerment. Taken together, the model show the value of school principals facilitating teachers in decision-making processes paired with showing a strong moral basis in their relationship with teachers. Research limitations/implications – The study reinforces the importance of moral leadership and distributed leadership as conjoint drivers for teachers’ sense of empowerment. It would be highly valuable to replicate this study in various multi-level settings. Practical implications – The findings recommend school leaders to put emphasis on facilitative, ethical, and authentic practices in immediate relationships with their teachers. Originality/value – The study provides empirical evidence regarding the partial relationships between principal leadership practices and teacher empowerment.