Resilient leadership in schools: The role of management team empowerment in shaping innovation and teacher satisfaction

Abstract

This study examined how school leaders’ resilience promotes team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction through its influence on school management team (SMT) empowerment. To minimize single-source bias, data were gathered from 86 elementary and junior high schools, including 86 school leaders, 357 school management team members, and 683 teachers who were not part of the school management team. Findings indicated significant positive associations between school leaders’ resilience and both school management team empowerment and team innovation. Moreover, school management team empowerment fully mediated the relationship between leaders’ resilience and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. These results underscore the importance of resilience not only as an individual psychological capacity but also as a resource that can be transmitted to teams and positively influence schoolteachers’ job satisfaction as an organizational-level outcome. Given that resilience is a state-like capacity that can be developed through training, these findings have direct implications for leadership development and capacity building programs in schools.

Keywords

Resilience school leadership team empowerment innovation job satisfaction

Introduction

Today's schools face multifaceted demands stemming from shifting policies and socioeconomic fluctuations (Zadok et al., 2024). In this dynamic context, the personal strengths of school leaders, particularly their resilience, are increasingly recognized as vital for navigating challenges and fostering desired outcomes (Halevi and Schechter, 2023; Seligman et al., 2009). Indeed, studies from the field of positive organizational behavior (POB; Luthans, 2002) have begun to focus on leaders’ resource strengths and psychological capacity rather than investigating the consequences of leadership styles (Avey et al., 2010). Contemporary approaches suggest that leaders’ resilience may be the essential capacity that enables them to function optimally in adverse situations and to promote organizational effectiveness (Howard and Irving, 2021; Masten et al., 2008).

Resilience is defined as “the positive psychological capacity to rebound, to bounce back from adversity, uncertainty, conflict, failure, or even positive change, progress and increased responsibility” (Luthans, 2002, p. 75). This definition contains two main components or processes: The first refers to the presence of threat, difficulty, or failure. The second aspect refers to the reaction that has to be a positive or adaptive response (Masten, 2001). Within the educational realm, school leaders’ resilience is considered a vital capacity for addressing professional challenges and for achieving work-related outcomes (Chen, 2025). However, despite growing recognition of the importance of investigating resilience among school leaders, research in school settings has primarily focused on teachers’ resilience (Wang et al., 2024) or on the role of resilience as an organizational resource within schools (Shani, 2020), rather than directly addressing the resilience of school leaders themselves. Furthermore, the few studies that examined the resource of leaders’ resilience have primarily focused on personal managerial skills (Halevi and Schechter, 2023) or on individual-level outcomes such as employees’ innovation and resilience (Eliot, 2020), while giving less attention to outcomes at the organizational level. However, school-level outcomes better reflect organizational effectiveness, as only collective and aggregated processes can drive the organization forward (George, 1990; Benoliel, 2021).

Although existing work recognizes the theoretical importance of leaders’ resilience, no prior research has investigated how school leaders’ resilience operates as a personal resource that shapes school-level outcomes. Specifically, previous studies have not examined whether school leaders’ resilience is transmitted to collective team processes, such as the empowerment of school management teams (SMTs) and, in turn, contributes to organizational outcomes such as innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. Addressing this gap is essential for understanding how leaders’ personal resources extend beyond individual coping and performance to influence SMTs and, ultimately, the school as a whole. Thus, examining the organizational consequences of school leaders’ resilience is necessary for understanding how school leaders’ personal resources transmit across levels and shape school effectiveness. Accordingly, the core argument of the present study is that school leaders’ resilience functions as a positive personal resource that is transmitted to the organizational level through team empowerment, thereby shaping school-level outcomes such as innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction.

The current study addresses this gap in the literature by examining the role of school leaders’ resilience as a positive capacity that may influence two key organizational outcomes: innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. Innovation is defined as the generation and implementation of new ideas and processes within teams (West and Farr, 1990), whereas job satisfaction reflects teachers’ shared positive perceptions of their work and school environment (Bogler, 2001; Liu and Liu, 2013). These outcomes represent behavioral and attitudinal dimensions, respectively, and their combined examination offers an integrative perspective on both organizational functioning and teachers’ experiences (Benoliel, 2021; Bogler, 2001). Furthermore, we propose a mediating model in which the empowerment of SMTs (Benoliel and Somech, 2016) serves as a team-level resource linking school leaders’ resilience to these organizational outcomes. Team empowerment is conceptualized as enhanced task motivation resulting from team members’ collective positive evaluations of their tasks within an organizational context (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999). Previous studies have underscored the mediating role of team empowerment as a mechanism through which leaders influence desirable work outcomes (Seibert et al., 2011).

The theoretical rationale of the current study relies on the guiding principles of two theories. First, the crossover model, which evolved from the tenets of the conservation of resources theory (COR; Chen et al., 2015), suggests that psychological resources may transmit between different levels in the organizational hierarchy from the individual level to the team and to the organizational levels (Westman, 2001). Second, the social learning theory emphasizes the importance of social processes, such as observing and mimicking role models for acquisition and preservation of new attitudes and behaviors (Bandura, 2001).

The findings of the study carry both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, school leaders’ resilience may serve as a potential resource for empowering SMTs and enhancing desired school outcomes. These results align with the expanded crossover model (Westman, 2001), which emphasizes the transmission of positive resources across organizational levels. Furthermore, the findings reinforce the importance of school leaders’ resilience as a complementary perspective that deepens our understanding of how leadership contributes to school success. Practically, the findings suggest that resilience can be developed through leadership training and professional development (Figure 1).

Theoretical background and hypotheses

School leaders’ resilience

School leaders’ resilience is considered essential for maintaining principals’ well-being, ensuring school continuity during turbulent times, and fostering school improvement (Benoliel and Schechter, 2023; Kutsyuruba et al., 2024). Beyond coping, resilience enables individuals to grow from adversity and achieve a better equilibrium in challenging contexts (Youssef and Luthans, 2007). Importantly, it is considered a state-like capacity distinct from personality traits, which can be cultivated and developed over time (King et al., 2016).

It is important to mention that most of the research that explored the influence of leaders’ resilience has mainly focused on personal leaders’ management skills (Halevi and Schechter, 2023), or the consequences of leaders’ resilience on outcomes at the individual level, such as innovation and employees’ resilience (Eliot, 2020), while ignoring outcomes at the organizational levels. Outcomes at the school level are better indicators of organizational effectiveness since sporadic and individual teachers’ behaviors and attitudes cannot, typically, represent an internal organizational attribute (George, 1990); only the aggregate level can motivate the organizational machinery forward and therefore foster organizational effectiveness (Benoliel, 2021).

Building on the crossover model (Chen et al., 2015) and on the social learning theory (Bandura, 2001), our study is aimed to focus on the consequences of school leaders’ resilience on organizational outcomes, exemplified by team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. The crossover model, which evolved from the tenets of the COR (Hobfoll, 1989), refers to the transmitting of resources between levels in the organizational hierarchy from the dyad to the team, and to the organization (Westman, 2001). The main principle of COR theory is that individuals achieve, maintain and protect resources that are valuable to them. Resources are defined as “those objects, personal characteristics, conditions, or energies that are valued by the individual, or that serve as a means for attainment of those objects, personal characteristics, conditions, or energies” (Hobfoll, 1989, p. 516). Scholars emphasize the importance of school leaders’ positive personal resources, such as resilience, as these contribute to the development of essential resources among educational staff, and ultimately promote organizational improvement (Chen et al., 2025). This process aligns with the crossover model, which posits that leaders’ personal resources can be transmitted to their staff, thereby enhancing team functioning and supporting organizational outcomes (Butt et al., 2019).

The social learning theory suggests that leaders serve as role models for their staff (Dietz et al., 2020). When team members observe and experience positive attitudes and behaviors of credible role models in leadership positions they are likely to mimic these attitudes and behaviors (Bandura, 2001). In the social learning approach to leadership, leaders are prototypical representations of their schools (Zadok et al., 2024), and, therefore, the teaching staff typically perceive their resilient leaders as demonstrating desirable capacities, attitudes and behaviors.

Complementing this perspective, upper echelons theory (UET; Hambrick and Mason, 1984) posits that organizational outcomes are shaped indirectly by top leaders’ characteristics through the strategic choices and organizational processes they influence. Leaders’ personal attributes, such as resilience, affect how leaders interpret their surroundings, conceptualize challenges, and make strategic decisions, which in turn shape team processes and organizational performance outcomes. In the school context, leaders’ resilience may be internalized by the SMT, fostering team empowerment, which acts as a key mechanism through which leadership resources translate into school-level outcomes.

The relationships between school leaders’ resilience and outcomes

The first goal of the current study was to examine the influence of school leaders’ resilience on two types of organizational outcomes: behavioral (team innovation) and attitudinal (schoolteachers’ job satisfaction). This integrative approach takes into account both the school's viewpoint and teachers’ perspective (Podsakoff et al., 2000; Somech and Bogler, 2015). In the following, we refer to each type of school outcome in relation to school leaders’ resilience.

Team innovation

Team innovation is defined as “the intentional introduction and application within a role, (work) group or organization of ideas, processes, products or procedures which are new to the relevant unit of adoption, designed to significantly benefit the individual, the group, the organization or wider society” (West and Farr, 1990, p. 9). It is a social process that evolves and is implemented through the interactions among teammates (Drach-Zahavy and Somech, 2001). Previous research identifies two sequential stages of team innovation: the creativity stage and the implementation stage (West, 2002). Although the innovation process begins with the generation of original ideas by talented individuals, the successful implementation of these ideas critically depends on the team's social context (Drach-Zahavy and Somech, 2001).

Relying on the crossover model principles, we argue that school leaders’ resilience is a vital managerial resource that may foster team innovation. School leaders’ resilience is characterized by several internal strengths (Eliot, 2020), such as internal and external networks (Halevi and Schechter, 2023), self-regulation, flexibility, and the ability to generate creative solutions (Chen, 2025). Through close and reciprocal interactions, these resources may be transmitted to SMT members (Lv et al., 2018; Ramadhani et al., 2024), fostering a climate of psychological safety that enables experimentation and the implementation of novel ideas and procedures. Hence, we hypothesized the following:

Hypothesis 1.

School leaders’ resilience will be positively related to team innovation.

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is defined as “an evaluative state that expresses contentment with, and positive feelings about, one's job” (Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012, p. 347). It is a dynamic construct shaped by the work context (Beuren et al., 2022), and in schools, it reflects teachers’ collective perceptions of their work environment (Bogler, 2001; Liu and Liu, 2013). Teachers’ attitudes are influenced by social interactions, particularly with leaders and middle management (Westover and Taylor, 2010). Accordingly, this study conceptualizes job satisfaction as an organizational outcome of school leaders’ resilience.

Relying on the principles of the crossover model, we argue that there is a process of transmitting positive resources from school leaders’ resilience to schoolteachers’ job satisfaction at the organizational level (Westman, 2001). School leaders with a high capacity for resilience have the ability to create a supportive and inclusive work environment that provides schoolteachers with positive and important resources to fulfill their professional and social needs, thereby enhancing their job satisfaction (Caniëls and Curseu, 2024; Halevi and Schechter, 2023). For instance, empirical evidence shows that teachers perceive leaders’ emotional strength and consistent support as central contributors to their workplace satisfaction (Chen, 2025; Malin and Hackmann, 2017). Thus, the resilience of school leaders may be experienced by teachers as a form of social and emotional support, enhancing their overall job satisfaction. Hence, we hypothesized the following:

Hypothesis 2.

School leaders’ resilience will be positively related to schoolteachers’ job satisfaction.

The relationships among school leaders’ resilience, SMT empowerment and school outcomes

The second objective of the current study was to examine the mechanisms through which school leaders’ resilience is translated into desirable organizational outcomes. Although previous research has established that leaders’ resilience contributes to positive work-related outcomes at the individual level, relatively little is known about the underlying processes that link leaders’ resilience to school-level outcomes. This study examines team empowerment as a key mediating mechanism.

Examining team empowerment in relation to school leaders’ resilience is essential for understanding how individual positive resources can be translated into collective team capacities that drive organizational outcomes. Team empowerment is a critical emergent state that mediates the relationship between leadership behaviors and organizational effectiveness (Seibert et al., 2011). When resilient leaders foster empowerment within their SMTs, they enable team members to collectively cope with challenges, thereby enhancing desired school outcomes (Zhang and Bartol, 2010; Somech, 2010). Therefore, exploring the link between school leaders’ resilience and SMT empowerment contributes to a deeper theoretical understanding of the crossover model - illustrating how a leader's personal resource (resilience) can evolve into a shared team resource (empowerment), and underscores a key mechanism through which principalship supports sustainable school effectiveness (Westman, 2001; Halbesleben et al., 2014).

In this section, we will focus on three key relationships: (a) the link between school leaders’ resilience and team empowerment, (b) the relationship between team empowerment and school outcomes, namely, innovation and job satisfaction, and (c) the mediating role of team empowerment in the association between leaders’ resilience and these outcomes.

The link between school leaders’ resilience and SMT empowerment

Over the past two decades, the role of SMTs has drawn growing attention due to their contribution to school adaptation and improvement in complex environments (Nadav et al., 2023). Operating as formal leadership teams embedded within school governance structures, SMTs are typically composed of the principal and senior staff and are responsible for managing daily school operations and implementing Ministry of Education educational and pedagogical policies. Building on this framework, the present study examines the association between school leaders’ resilience and SMT empowerment, proposing that school leaders’ capacity to adapt and persist in the face of ongoing challenges may contribute to higher levels of SMT empowerment.

Empowerment, as a resource at the SMT level, is defined as the “increased task motivation due to team members’ collective positive assessments of their tasks, within an organizational context” (Kirkman et al., 2001, p. 651). It is an emergent state that is captured by four dimensions: potency, meaningfulness, autonomy and impact. Potency is the shared belief of a team that it can be effective. Meaningfulness is the degree of team members’ motivation and caring about their tasks. Autonomy is team members’ belief that they have freedom to make decisions. Impact is the degree to which team members feel that their tasks make significant contributions to their organization (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999). The present study posits that school leaders’ resilience is positively associated with the empowerment of their SMTs. This assumption is supported by the crossover model (Westman, 2001) and grounded in social learning theory, which highlights the role of observational learning from credible role models (Bandura, 2001).

Research indicates that resilient leaders demonstrate high levels of social confidence, independent thinking, autonomous behavior and a strong sense of self-efficacy in their ability to manage adversity effectively (Kunnari et al., 2018; Kutsyuruba et al., 2024). Furthermore, they tend to perceive their work as meaningful, which motivates them to exert effort in overcoming challenges and even thriving in difficult circumstances (Gong et al., 2024). Drawing on the crossover model, it is suggested that resilient school leaders are more capable of transmitting these resources to members of their SMTs, thereby fostering team empowerment (Chen et al., 2015; Nadav et al., 2023). As key actors within the school, school leaders engage in frequent, close interactions with SMT members, who represent the school's middle leadership (Benoliel and Somech, 2016). These ongoing interactions create opportunities for resource crossover, whereby the leader's personal strengths are transmitted into the team's collective climate. Consequently, resilient school leaders may enhance their SMT's sense of potency, meaning, autonomy, and impact, thereby strengthening the team's overall empowerment (Kirkman and Rosen, 1999).

The social learning theory provides an additional potential explanation for the existence of a positive association between school leaders’ resilience and SMT empowerment. The theory suggests that leaders serve as role models for their staff (Avey et al., 2010). When team members observe and experience positive attitudes and behaviors of credible role models in leadership positions they are likely to mimic these attitudes and behaviors (Bandura, 2001). School leaders serve as prototypical representations of their organizations (Zadok et al., 2024). As such, members of SMTs tend to perceive their resilient leaders as modeling desirable capacities, attitudes and behaviors (Dietz et al., 2020). Through observation and repeated interaction, SMT members may internalize key job resources demonstrated by the school leader, such as autonomous decision-making, a belief in one's ability to successfully overcome challenges, and intrinsic motivation to resolve crises and fulfill essential responsibilities (Ledesma, 2014). These resources that reflect the leader's personal resilience may, through social learning processes, foster similar resources among members of the SMT (Bandura, 2001). Accordingly, SMTs are motivated by new challenges in their work and strive to solve problems effectively. This motivation contributes to the establishment of high standards and expectations within the team, which, when embedded in a confident and supportive work environment, may foster the development of team empowerment (Hakanen et al., 2008). Hence, we hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 3.

School leaders’ resilience will be positively related to SMT empowerment.

The relationship between team empowerment and school outcomes

In the current study, we also investigate the relationships between team empowerment and school outcomes, as exemplified by team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction.

Team innovation

Team autonomy, a central component of empowerment, enhances intrinsic motivation, flexibility and ownership, which promote creative thinking and innovative practices (Grass et al., 2020). Empowered teams also tend to show high levels of potency and shared meaning, further reinforcing innovative behaviors (Reilly et al., 2003). Although this relationship was examined at the individual level, a study conducted among teachers in Malaysia provides empirical support for this theoretical link, revealing a positive effect of teacher empowerment on innovation (Mokhlis and Abdullah, 2025). Therefore, we suggest that team empowerment among SMTs may play a critical role in facilitating team innovation within schools. Hence, we hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 4.

There will be a positive relationship between SMT empowerment and innovation.

Job satisfaction

The study model proposes that empowering SMTs facilitates the transmission of positive resources to staff members, thereby promoting job satisfaction as an organizational-level phenomenon. According to the expanded conceptualization of the crossover model, job resources play a central role in resource gain processes and can be transmitted across hierarchical levels within organizations from teams to the broader organizational context (Chen et al., 2015). SMTs that experience empowerment tend to report greater professional autonomy in their pedagogical decisions, a strong sense of competence, and a belief that their work is meaningful and impactful (Maforah and Schulze, 2012; Mathieu et al., 2006). Empowerment, as a shared team resource, fulfills the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness among SMT members. These fulfilled needs foster intrinsic motivation and job fulfillment, which contribute to higher levels of job satisfaction (Seibert et al., 2011). According to previous findings, empowered SMTs, by virtue of their leadership roles and frequent interactions with teaching staff, are well positioned to transmit these positive resources to teachers. This transmission, in turn, influences schoolteachers’ own job attitudes and satisfaction (Avidov-Ungar and Hanin-Itzak, 2019). Therefore, it is proposed that the positive team resources characterizing empowered SMTs, namely, autonomy, potency, meaningfulness and impact, enable them to meet the professional and social needs of the teaching staff, thereby enhancing schoolteachers’ perceptions of job satisfaction (Seibert et al., 2011). Hence, we hypothesize that:

Hypothesis 5.

There will be a positive relationship between SMT empowerment and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction.

Team empowerment as a mediator between school leaders’ resilience and outcomes

Finally, the current study suggests that SMT empowerment plays a mediating role between leaders’ resilience and school outcomes. For this purpose, we examined a mediation model, the theoretical rationale based on the classic team functioning model of input-process-output (Ilgen et al., 2005). The model emphasizes the role of mediating mechanisms, such as emergent states, in transforming inputs into outcomes. These mechanisms evolve through ongoing team interactions and offer a more comprehensive explanation of how psychological and social resources are transmitted, exchanged and enacted within the team system (Ilgen et al., 2005). Complementing the input-process-output framework, this mediating process is also theoretically grounded in UET (Hambrick, 2007), which posits that leaders’ personal characteristics and resources influence organizational outcomes indirectly, through organizational processes they shape (Kim, 2022; Neely et al., 2020). From this perspective, school leaders’ resilience does not affect school outcomes directly, but rather through team-level processes that reflect how leadership resources are interpreted, internalized, and enacted within key organizational outcomes.

In this context, team empowerment is conceptualized as an emergent motivational state that mediates the influence of school leaders’ resilience on school outcomes. As a shared team-level resource, empowerment develops over time through collective experiences and reciprocal interactions among SMT members, making it a key mechanism through which leadership resources affect organizational outcomes. Furthermore, through close and ongoing interactions, school leaders’ resilience may be internalized by the SMT, fostering autonomy, confidence and flexibility that support team innovation (Benoliel and Somech, 2016; Kirkman and Rosen, 1999). Moreover, empowered SMTs help create a supportive work environment that enhances teachers’ access to positive resources, thereby improving schoolteachers’ job satisfaction (Chen et al., 2015). Consistent with both the input-process-output framework and UET, we therefore propose that SMT empowerment functions as a key mechanism through which school leaders’ resilience is transmitted across organizational levels to influence school outcomes. Hence, we hypothesized the following:

Hypothesis 6.

SMT empowerment will mediate the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and the school outcomes (team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction).

Method

Sample and procedure

The study included 86 primary and junior high schools in Israel. Schools were randomly selected from the Ministry of Education's official list in the Northern districts and included both Jewish and Arab public schools. Data were collected from three sources to avoid problems associated with single-source bias (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986): the school leader, SMTs, and teachers who are not members of the SMTs. Schools in which data were obtained from less than 60% of the management team's members (excluding the principal) or less than 10% of teachers who are not members of the SMT were excluded. School leaders completed the school leader resilience and innovation questionnaires; SMT members completed the team empowerment scale; and teachers completed the job satisfaction questionnaire. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire.

The Israeli educational system operates within a highly centralized framework (Bogler and Somech, 2019). The Ministry of Education governs the national curriculum, teacher recruitment, assessment policies, and the allocation of resources across schools. Within this structure, the school principal serves as the central pedagogical and administrative leader, responsible for shaping instructional practices, managing organizational and operational processes, and fostering collaboration with teachers, parents, the local community, and educational authorities (Addi-Raccah, 2015; Ganon-Shilon and Schechter, 2019). SMTs are typically composed of senior staff members - such as deputy principals, grade-level coordinators, and disciplinary coordinators - and are led by the school principal. Through collaborative processes, SMTs engage in collective decision-making, define school goals, and share responsibility for the formulation and enactment of school-level policies (Arar and Nasra, 2020).

The research sample included 1126 school members according to the following division: 86 principals, 357 management team members, and 683 teachers. In total, 66 of the schools were elementary schools and 20 were middle schools. In all, 40.2% of the principals who participated in the study were women. The average age was 52 years old (SD = 7.32), and the average seniority as principals was 10 years (SD = 6.99). Of the management team members, 77% of the participants were women; the average age was 43 years (SD = 7.31), and the average seniority was 18 years (SD = 7.84). The management team size ranged from three to 10 (M = 5.48, SD = 1.56). Of the teachers who participated in the study, 83.2% were women. Their average age was 41 years (SD = 8.24), and the average seniority was 16 years (SD = 8.81).

Measures

Leaders’ resilience was measured on a 3-item scale adapted from the PsyCap questionnaire (PCQ-24) developed by Luthans et al. (2007). Rating leaders’ resilience was assessed by the school leader on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), (e.g., “I usually take stressful principal development activities in stride”), (α = .89).

Team empowerment was measured using Kirkman and Rosen's (1999) Team Empowerment scale, which was specifically adjusted to suit the educational setting context (Somech, 2005). The scale measures an overall perception of team empowerment and consists of four dimensions: potency (α = .85), (e.g., “my team has confidence in itself”); meaningfulness (α = .90), (e.g., “my team believes that its work is valuable”); autonomy (α = .88), (e.g., “my team can select different ways to do its work”); and impact (α = .91), (e.g., “my team performs tasks that matter to the school”). Rating team empowerment was assessed by the SMT members on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), (α = .94).

Job satisfaction was measured using Bahl and Ansari's (1996) scale. Respondents were asked to evaluate how satisfied they are with each of the seven items representing intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction (e.g., “I feel what I accomplish is worthwhile when doing my job”). The teachers rated job satisfaction on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 (very little satisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). The score was calculated as the mean of the seven items and was aggregated at the team level (α = .88).

Innovation was measured on a 4-item scale adapted from West and Wallace (1991). The scale requested principals to rate the degree to which SMT members in their school had initiated changes in each of four job areas: work objectives, working methods, teaching methods and development of skills (e.g., “SMT members initiated new teaching methods”) (α = . 89).

Control variables

The model included two control variables. The first was school size, calculated based on the number of teachers employed at the school. This variable was included because organizational size has been shown to influence processes and outcomes (Somech and Ohayon, 2020). The second control variable was school level (elementary or middle), as prior studies have indicated its potential impact on teachers’ attitudes and behaviors (Somech and Drach-Zahavy, 2007).

Levels of analysis

The unit of analysis in the current study was the school. Team empowerment was measured as a team-level construct and was evaluated by the SMT members. Job satisfaction was measured as a school-level construct and was evaluated by teachers who are not members of SMTs in their schools. Innovation was evaluated as a team-level construct and was measured by the school leader. Prior to aggregation, the degree of agreement among team members was determined for team empowerment and job satisfaction. Two measures were examined: Rwg (within-group inter-rater agreement) and intra-class correlation (ICC). A value of .70 or above is conceived as a “good” degree of within-group inter-rater agreement (James et al., 1993). All scales exceeded this criterion: Average scores were 0.96 for team empowerment, and 0.95 for teachers’ job satisfaction. We also obtained the following ICC(1) and ICC(2) values: team empowerment 0.12 and 0.40, and teachers’ job satisfaction 0.01 and 0.40, respectively. As indicated by Bliese (2000), ICC(1) generally ranges from 0 to 0.50 with a median of 0.12. Regarding the cutting point for ICC(2), there is no common agreement. Koo and Li (2016) suggested that ICC(2) values around 0.50 are desirable to justify aggregation. In the current study, the team empowerment and the job satisfaction scales exceeded the median score and support the use of the average scores as organizational measures.

Results

Table 1 presents means, standard deviations and correlations among the study variables. Team empowerment and innovation were positively and significantly correlated with school leaders’ resilience (r = .26, p = .05; r = .59, p = .001, respectively). Schoolteachers’ job satisfaction was positively and significantly correlated with team empowerment (r = .41, p = .001). These relationships provide initial support for the study model.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, and correlation matrix of study variables

Scale	Mean	SD	2	3	4
1. School leaders’ resilience	5.06	0.69	.26*	.59***	.22
2. Team empowerment	4.43	0.26		.11	.41***
3. Team innovation	4.83	0.76			.12
4. Teachers’ job satisfaction	4.24	0.28

*p < .05, ***p < .001.

The mediation model was tested following the four conditions outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). Specifically, school leaders’ resilience was examined as a predictor of the school outcomes (innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction) and of the proposed mediator, team empowerment. Team empowerment was then examined as a predictor of the school outcomes while controlling for school leaders’ resilience. Mediation was inferred when the direct effect of school leaders’ resilience on the school outcomes was reduced after inclusion of team empowerment in the model. Finally, the research model was analyzed using PROCESS V4.2 (Hayes, 2018), which is specifically designed for the analysis of complex causal relationships involving mediating variables.

Two mediating models were tested. The first examined the mediating role of team empowerment between school leaders’ resilience and innovation. The second examined the mediating role of team empowerment between school leaders’ resilience and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. School size and school level were entered as control variables. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis are presented in Figure 2 (innovation) and Figure 3 (job satisfaction). School size had no significant effect in both models (innovation: B = 0.09, p > .05; job satisfaction: B = 0.16, p > .05), and so was school level which was not significant in both models (innovation: B = 0.05, p > .05; job satisfaction (B = 0.06, p > .05).

Regarding the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and school outcomes (team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction), the research findings indicate a direct and positive association between school leaders’ resilience and team innovation (B = 0.60, p < .001). However, no significant direct relationship was found between school leaders’ resilience and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction (B = 0.11, p > .05). Accordingly, the findings support the first hypothesis; however, the second hypothesis was not confirmed. We also found a direct and significant relationship between school leaders’ resilience and SMT members’ empowerment (B = 0.27, p < .05) supporting the third hypothesis.

Regarding the direct associations between empowerment among SMT members and the school outcomes of team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction, the study results revealed a significant positive relationship between team empowerment and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction (B = 0.40, p < .05), whereas the association with innovation was not statistically significant (B = 0.03, p > .05). Therefore, the fourth hypothesis was not supported, while the fifth hypothesis was supported.

When examining the mediation model, team empowerment fully mediated the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and job satisfaction. The indirect effect was significant, as the 95% confidence interval (CI) did not include zero (B = 0.11, 95% CI [0.01, 0.22], p < .05), while the direct effect of resilience on job satisfaction was non-significant, indicating full mediation. In contrast, for innovation, the direct effect of resilience was significant, whereas the indirect effect via team empowerment was non-significant, as the 95% CI included zero, indicating no mediation (p > .05) (Table 2).

Table 2.

Results of testing the mediating role of team empowerment

	Direct effect		Indirect effect
	Coefficient	Hypothesis	Coefficient	Percentile bootstrap, 95% confidence interval
	Coefficient	Hypothesis	Coefficient	Lower	Upper
Resilience → innovation	.60***	Res → empower → innovation	−.01	−.06	.04
Resilience → satisfaction	.21	Res → empower → satisfaction	.11*	.01	.22

*p < .05, ***p < .001.

Discussion

Resilience has been increasingly recognized as a core capacity that enables leaders to adapt and thrive in changeable school environments (Youssef and Luthans, 2007). However, the way through which leaders’ resilience influences school outcomes remains unclear (Chen, 2025). This study addresses this gap by exploring the role of leaders’ resilience in promoting team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction, through the mediating mechanism of team empowerment. The results of the current study indicate that team empowerment fully mediates the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. However, the mediating role of team empowerment in the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and innovation was not supported. A positive and significant direct relationship was found between school leaders’ resilience and team innovation. Accordingly, the present research contributes to the management literature in several ways.

First, the study revealed a significant positive relationship between school leaders’ resilience and team empowerment among SMTs. This finding is consistent with the principles of POB (Luthans, 2002), which emphasize the influence of leaders’ personal strengths on their organizational environment. According to this approach, leaders’ resilience and positivity can be transmitted to team members through processes of social learning (Avey et al., 2010; Halevi and Schechter, 2023). Based in Bandura's (2001) social learning theory, the results underscore the role of school leaders as behavioral models for their SMTs in fostering empowerment (Chen et al., 2025; Somech and Ohayon, 2020). When school leaders display resilient behavior, SMT members tend to emulate these behaviors and, in turn, adopt empowering practices themselves (Caniëls and Curseu, 2024). This contribution highlights the importance of school leaders’ personal capacity for resilience in the development of empowered SMTs. It offers a complementary perspective to existing leadership theories, which have primarily focused either on structural (Mincu, 2022) or relational leadership practices (Giles, 2019). It should also be noted that the school leader is an integral member of the SMT and, more precisely, serves as its leader. Therefore, the findings may also reflect a reciprocal influence between the school leader's resilience and team empowerment. In other words, a resilient leader may nurture empowerment among SMT members, while an empowered team may, in turn, enhance the school leader's resilience. This reciprocal relationship can be viewed as a positive gain spiral (Chen et al., 2015), in which personal and SMT resources reinforce one another over time, promoting desired school outcomes. This perspective highlights the interdependence between the school leaders and their SMT resources, suggesting that positive processes at one level can stimulate further resource accumulation at another, leading to a positive gain spiral of resilience and empowerment across the SMT.

The second contribution is in identifying the mediating role of SMT empowerment between the school leaders’ resilience and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. Particularly, these findings suggest that school leaders’ resilience influences schoolteachers’ job satisfaction indirectly, through the mediating role of empowered SMTs that serve as a critical mechanism for translating school leaders’ capacity into organizational outcome. SMTs are organized in interdisciplinary management teams to which principalship authorities are delegated, and are responsible for the daily educational work, as well as shaping the school policy (Benoliel, 2021). The findings of the present study provide support to previous research that has argued for reorganizing schools into management team-based structures for achieving school success (Benoliel and Somech, 2016). Specifically, the current findings contribute to the educational management literature by presenting the importance of empowering SMTs as a team mechanism that helps school leaders create satisfying work environments, which consequently foster schoolteachers’ positive attitudes regarding their educational work. Furthermore, the study results show a trickle-down effect from school leaders to the SMTs, ultimately affecting schoolteachers’ well-being (Mayer et al., 2008). As suggested by Westman's (2001) crossover model, the findings of the current study set the spotlight on the transmission of positive personal resources from leaders’ resilience, to SMTs’ empowerment, and in the end improving organizational outcomes. Initially, the crossover model was focused on employees’ experiences of negative emotions that may impact other employees’ personal distress within a dyadic relationship in the same social environment (Bolger et al., 1989). Westman (2001) expanded the model by referring to positive resource crossover, adopting a multi-level approach where resources are transferred at the level of the dyad, the team and the organization. The study findings, therefore, support the expanded Westman's definition regarding the crossover of capacities and resources among the various levels in the school organizational hierarchy (Butt et al., 2019).

While the study highlights the mediating role of SMT empowerment in the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction, a different pattern emerged regarding team innovation. Specifically, no statistically significant mediating effect was found for team empowerment in the relationship between school leaders’ resilience and team innovation. Nevertheless, the results confirmed a positive and direct association between school leaders’ resilience and team innovation. This finding constitutes the third contribution of the current study, underscoring the pivotal role of school leaders’ resilience in fostering innovation at the team level. It suggests that resilient leaders may provide their teams with valuable psychological and organizational resources, such as adaptability and problem-solving capacity that directly support innovative behaviors (Halevi and Schechter, 2023; Salazar and Avolio, 2024). These resources may enhance the teams’ ability to respond creatively to challenges, even in the absence of empowerment as a mediating mechanism.

Finally, the findings of the present study align with the UET (Hambrick and Mason, 1984), which asserts that organizational outcomes reflect the characteristics, values, and cognitions of top leaders. Specifically, the results demonstrate that school leaders’ resilience - a key personal resource - positively affects SMT empowerment, which subsequently contributes to team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. These findings extend the Upper Echelons perspective by identifying a team-level mechanism through which leaders’ personal resources translate into organizational outcomes. While the classic UET emphasizes a direct link between top leaders’ characteristics and organizational performance, our findings demonstrate that this relationship can operate indirectly through the empowerment of the SMT. Specifically, school leaders’ resilience fosters collective empowerment within SMTs, which in turn promotes team innovation and schoolteachers’ job satisfaction. This highlights a multilevel transmission process, whereby individual leader resources shape team dynamics that enriches the Upper Echelons perspective by revealing how leaders’ personal attributes become embedded in collective organizational processes.

Limitations and future research

The current study has several limitations warranting further attention in future studies. First, the cross-sectional design of the study enabled us to present a positive link between school leaders’ resilience and SMT empowerment. However, this method cannot provide evidence of casual links among the study's variables. Hence, the casual links could be reversed, as empowered SMT members may enhance the resilience of school leaders. Future study should use longitudinal designs to further validate the casual links suggested in the proposed research model. Second, our study describes a model that did not take into account contextual variables that may moderate the relationships among the study's variables (Bakar and McCann, 2014). Future research should examine the influence of contextual factors such as cultural attributes, which may shape how leadership resources translate into team empowerment and organizational outcomes. Finally, the present study applied only quantitative methods to investigate the relationships in the research model. Employing a mixed-methods design in future research may further expand our understanding of the implications of this important leadership capacity on school functioning and improvement (Wang et al., 2024). For example, combining quantitative data with qualitative methods, such as interviews with school leaders, could provide deeper insights into the characteristics and consequences of school leaders’ resilience (Halevi and Schechter, 2023). Moreover, future research could examine additional school outcomes that were not included in the present model, such as students’ academic achievement and school violence, both of which have been identified as key indicators of school effectiveness (Benoliel, 2021).

Practical implications

Beyond its theoretical contribution, the study's findings also have practical implications, emphasizing the role of school leaders’ resilience as a valuable personal resource in present times. Resilience enables school leaders to empower SMTs and thereby promote desired school outcomes. From a practical perspective, therefore, resilience as a state-like construct may be fostered through school leadership preparation and professional development programs (Eliot, 2020). Such programs may include mindfulness-based stress reduction (Bonde et al., 2022), cognitive-behavioral coaching (Junker et al., 2021), and peer support networks (Poirel, 2022). For example, resilience-building workshops that focus on adaptive coping strategies, reflective practices and scenario-based leadership simulations have shown promise in enhancing leaders’ capacity to manage adversity (Leithwood et al., 2020). Embedding these elements within leadership training curricula may consequently not only strengthen school leaders’ resilience, but also contribute to improved school functioning and organizational well-being. Furthermore, the findings reinforce the mediating role of SMT empowerment for enhancing schoolteachers’ satisfaction. In other words, our results point to the importance of empowering school management as a key factor in achieving organizational outcomes. SMT empowerment may be promoted through various evidence-based strategies. For instance, participative leadership practices that engage team members in decision-making processes have been shown to enhance a sense of collective efficacy and autonomy among SMTs (Somech, 2005). In addition, mentoring and peer-learning structures within the leadership team, such as reciprocal coaching between senior and junior members, may support professional growth and strengthen mutual trust (Bush, 2009). The current study may therefore have implications for policy and practice, particularly in designing professional development frameworks and school leadership structures that intentionally cultivate empowerment within SMTs as a vehicle for promoting positive school outcomes.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Anit Somech

Ronit Bogler

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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