Configuring effects of learning-centred leadership in promoting teacher professional learning and teacher self-efficacy.

This article investigates how the four dimensions of learning-centred leadership—building a learning vision, providing learning support, managing the learning programme, and modelling—combine to influence teacher professional learning and teacher self-efficacy among secondary school teachers in Penang, Malaysia. Using both symmetric (partial least squares structural equation modelling, PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, fsQCA) approaches grounded in complexity theory, the study found that providing learning support and modelling have significant direct positive effects on teacher professional learning, while modelling also positively affects teacher self-efficacy. The fsQCA revealed multiple configurations of these leadership dimensions that sufficiently explain high levels of teacher professional learning and self-efficacy, highlighting that combinations of leadership practices rather than isolated dimensions drive these outcomes. The findings underscore the importance of school leaders’ roles in fostering supportive environments and serving as role models to enhance teacher development and confidence, offering implications for educational leadership practice and policy in similar contexts.