Supervisors’ paternalistic leadership influences college English teachers’ teaching efficacy in China

Using social exchange theory and the social constructivist theory of emotion, I examined the relationship between supervisors’ paternalistic leadership and college English teachers’ teaching efficacy in China, as well as the roles emotional creativity and professional identity played in this relationship. Participants were 674 teachers of English at 30 colleges in China. Results of factor and correlation analyses, structural equation modeling, and regression analysis revealed that supervisors’ paternalistic leadership had significantly positive effects on teachers’ teaching efficacy, and that teachers’ professional identity had a meditating effect in the relationship between paternalistic leadership and teaching efficacy. In addition, teachers’ emotional creativity positively moderated the relationship between supervisors’ paternalistic leadership and teachers’ teaching efficacy, and emotional creativity acted as a mediated moderator of the link between these two variables. My findings contribute to comprehension of the effect mechanism of supervisors’ paternalistic leadership on teachers’ teaching efficacy.