From school leadership to classroom practice: The mediating roles of emotions and collaboration in curriculum reform

School leadership is pivotal in enabling teachers to enact pedagogical innovation during curriculum reform. This study conceptualises school leadership as the practice of mobilising school resources through both administrative and emotional support, and examines how these forms of support facilitate teachers’ reform-oriented practices through the mediating roles of teacher emotions and collaboration. A national survey of upper secondary teachers in Taiwan was conducted, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was applied to test the proposed model. The findings indicate that administrative support enhances teacher joy, collaboration, and competency-oriented teaching, and indirectly strengthens instructional change through positive emotions and collegial engagement. Emotional support primarily nurtures joy and reduces fatigue, with reduced fatigue fully mediating its positive effect on competency-oriented teaching, while joy contributes indirectly through collaborative engagement. These results suggest that administrative support directly drives teacher change by providing structural resources, while emotional support sustains a positive affective climate that enables collaborative work and innovation. These findings clarify that leadership influence operates through interconnected structural, emotional, and relational pathways, highlighting the distinctive yet complementary roles of administrative and emotional support in sustaining reform-oriented pedagogy and teachers’ well-being.