The organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of teachers is crucial for effective school functioning, and accessing valuable resources from principals greatly influences this behavior. Grounded in the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study explored how a principal's emotional intelligence (EI) and teachers' organizational trust (OT) impact teachers' OCB. A survey was conducted on 521 elementary teachers in Taiwan using established scales to measure the constructs. Perceived principal's EI was assessed across self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management dimensions. Similarly, teachers' OCB was examined through interpersonal citizenship performance, organizational citizenship performance, and job/task conscientiousness dimensions. Teachers' OT was explored in terms of personal trust in the individual, trust in the principal, and trust in the school. The mediation effect of OT in the relationship between a principal's EI and teachers' OCB was analyzed using Hayes' PROCESS macro for SPSS. The results yielded valuable evidence supporting the mediating model that teachers' OCB, influenced by the principal's EI, can be seen as secondary gains driven by higher levels of OT cultivated by emotionally intelligent principals. This study emphasizes the pivotal role of a principal's EI in fostering teachers' OT and OCB, underscoring the significance of EI in educational leadership. Investing in the EI development of school principals can nurture a positive school culture, enabling teachers to fully realize their potential and contribute to the overall well-being of the school community. However, the research results face limitations in generalizability due to the restricted sample size exclusive to Taiwan and the reliance on self-report measures in the study.

Drawing on Diffusion of Innovation Theory, this empirical study examines how digital instructional leadership impacts the integration of AI and AI pedagogy in K–12 schools. In addition, the study examines how trust in AI moderates the relationship between AI integration and AI pedagogy. To achieve this goal, a large-scale cross-sectional survey was administered to 842 K–12 teachers in Taiwan who had prior experience integrating AI tools into their classroom instruction. The data were analyzed using SPSS and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Results show that digital instructional leadership significantly predicts AI integration but has no direct effect on AI pedagogy. In addition, AI integration strongly predicts AI pedagogy and mediates the relationship between digital instructional leadership and AI pedagogy, whereas trust in AI does not moderate the relationship between AI integration and AI pedagogy. Both theoretical and practical contributions are discussed, offering insights for future research, policymakers, and teachers.

In response to global educational reform, improving novice teachers’ teaching practice quality is essential for student learning and system sustainability. However, empirical evidence on how leadership influences instructional outcomes for early-career teachers is limited. Using data from 1311 teachers in Taiwan with less than 5 years of experience from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey dataset, this study employs hierarchical linear modeling to examine the impact of distributed leadership on teaching practice quality, with teacher autonomy and well-being as mediators. The findings reveal that distributed leadership indirectly improved teaching practice quality by enhancing teachers’ perceived autonomy in curriculum and instruction, supporting its role as a psychological mechanism that links organizational support to professional behavior. While distributed leadership positively predicted teacher well-being, well-being did not significantly affect teaching practice quality, neither directly nor indirectly. No significant association was found between autonomy and well-being. The results highlight that novice teachers’ teaching improvements stem more from professional agency and decision-making authority than emotional well-being. The findings augment existing studies by clarifying the differential pathways through which distributed leadership operates while identifying the limits of well-being as a performance driver in this context. Implications for school leadership and teacher development are discussed.