ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
The Relationship between Distributed Leadership and the Enthusiasm and Professional Collaboration Levels of Teachers in Türkiye: The Moderator Effect of Teacher Optimism
Kocaeli University, İzmit, Türkiye
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Abstract
The professional collaboration of teachers is highly important for the success of educational outcomes. This study aimed to determine the conditions under which distributed leadership influenced the collaboration of teachers. Data collected from 547 teachers working at 38 different public schools in 20 provinces across Türkiye were analyzed in a cross-sectional manner using the bootstrap method. The effects of distributed leadership on teacher collaboration were examined using a moderated mediation model in which teaching enthusiasm was the mediator variable, and teacher optimism was the moderator variable. The results revealed that distributed leadership had direct and indirect significant effects on teacher collaboration through the mediation of teaching enthusiasm. Additionally, teacher optimism plays a moderating role in both the effect of distributed leadership on teaching enthusiasm and the effect of distributed leadership on teacher collaboration through teaching enthusiasm. In other words, the positive effects of distributed leadership became stronger in cases where teacher optimism levels were high.
Summary
Keywords
distributed leadership1, moderated mediation5, teacher collaboration3, teacheroptimism4, teaching enthusiasm2
Received
21 October 2025
Accepted
16 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Doğuş. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Yurdagül Doğuş
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