Despite pervasive calls for educational innovation, the mechanisms linking school leadership to teacher innovativeness remain largely underexplored. This study investigated the relationship between distributed leadership, teacher autonomy, self-efficacy, and innovativeness, as well as the moderating role of workload stress. Data were drawn from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey, which included 3147 teachers from 198 Chinese lower secondary schools. Results show that distributed leadership influences teacher innovativeness both directly and indirectly, with teacher autonomy and self-efficacy serving as partial mediators. Multigroup analysis further reveals a conditional moderating effect of workload stress, with stronger effects of distributed leadership observed under low-stress conditions. The findings may assist policymakers and practitioners in making informed decisions and developing targeted interventions to foster teacher capacity for innovative pedagogy.
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