Grounded in job demands-resources theory, this study examines how transformational leadership relates to teacher motivation at work through perceived school climate and investigates whether trust in the school principal moderates this pathway.
Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 755 senior secondary public school teachers in Delhi, India. A moderated mediation model was tested using Hayes’ PROCESS macro (Model 14), specifying transformational leadership as predictor, school climate as mediator, teacher motivation at work as outcome, and trust in school principals as moderator.
Transformational leadership was positively associated with school climate and directly with teacher motivation at work. School climate mediated the leadership-to-motivation relationship. Trust in school principals moderated the association between school climate and motivation; the indirect pathway from transformational leadership to teacher motivation via school climate was stronger at higher levels of trust, confirming moderated mediation.
Principals in resource-constrained public schools can sustain teacher motivation by strengthening school climate and cultivating relational trust as actionable levers when structural and financial incentives are limited.
The study extends job demands-resources theory to educational settings by specifying school climate as an organisational mechanism linking transformational leadership to teacher motivation and identifying trust in principal as a relational boundary condition. It provides context-specific evidence from a large, resource-constrained public school system in a non-Western setting, tested using an integrated, moderated-mediation approach.
