The public sector is currently experiencing a digital transformation that goes along with changes both in the organization and in the content of work (OECD, 2019a). Managing these changes poses a challenge to leadership. Despite the possibility that digitalization can empower employees to collaborate and develop more consumer-friendly solutions (Dunleavy, 2005), a considerable scepticism among employees towards digital solutions has emerged (Spencer, 2018). This calls for investigations into which leadership practices enable the successful implementation of digitalization in this area. By investigating the implementation of a learning management system (LMS) in Danish primary and lower-secondary schools, we study the relationship between transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2005) practices and teachers’ wellbeing, as well as the adoption of innovation by teachers and the specific role that digital sense-making plays in this process. 

Previous studies have shown that transformational leadership is a common leadership strategy in Denmark and its use is recognized by employees  (see e.g. Jacobsen & Staniok, 2020). The literature also points out that transformational leadership is an ideal leadership strategy when an organization must change its objectives (Eisenbach et al., 1999; Yukl, 2008), which is the case for Danish school leaders. Cortellazzo et al. (2019) conclude from a literature review that digital innovations are organizational changes that need specific attention by leaders. Moreover, transformational leadership is a strategy that seems to have a positive influence on employees wellbeing (Arnold, 2017). As such, the LMS that was implemented is a digital platform where teachers can build their teaching and communicate with e.g. parents and students (Jewitt et al., 2011). It has the potential to change teachers’ daily work substantively by digitalizing their work. But it is also a tool that enables the school management and parents to monitor whether teachers are complying with all requirements. Digitalization in this form regularly meets criticism as it can result in ‘digital Taylorism’, which is associated with boredom that alienates employees from their work (Spencer, 2018). In order to avoid a drop in the motivation and job satisfaction of employees, the local management plays a particularly important role (e.g. Frey & Jegen, 2002). Their practice can be perceived as supportive or controlling by employees. Thus, to understand the consequences of digitalization for public employees, it is crucial to study the key role of local management.

Education is by no means an exception when it comes to digitalization. Central policymakers like the OECD highlight the positive effect of digital solutions on student learning outcomes (OECD, 2012). However, a qualitative study of the implementation of an LMS in the UK showed that digital innovation can also meet resistance among teachers, and that in this case, rather than supporting bottom-up plurality, it led to an officially mandated, standardised teaching practice (Selwyn, 2011). Against this background, the Danish case is an interesting example for at least two reasons. First, Denmark is a frontrunner in the digitalization of education (The European Commission, 2020). Second, a conflict emerged with regard to implementation that reveals the typical gap between the intentions of policymakers and the reluctance of employees to have their work controlled rigidly. Danish governments have embraced digital solutions in order to streamline work tasks and make work more efficient and easier in the long term (Bøgelund, 2015), regardless of the parliamentary majority in place at any one time. But the implementation phase of this LMS coincided with a heated conflict between policymakers and teachers relating to working conditions. The implementation of the LMS resulted in additional potential for conflict that the school management had to address.

A nationwide cross-sectional web survey was conducted in collaboration with the Danish Teachers Union (DLF), which represents approximately 95 percent of all teachers (Aisinger, 2015). The questionnaire was sent by DLF via e-mail to 5,000 randomly selected teachers in January 2020. Twenty-four percent of all teachers who were contacted answered the questionnaire, and 19 percent completed the full survey. Out of 1,124 teachers that are in active service, we could use 962 cases without missing value on any relevant variable. Measurement Our central independent variable transformational leadership as well as ‘sense making’ and wellbeing were measured using batteries of survey items. For all three variables, we conducted explorative factor analysis. The first battery measures wellbeing based on questions that were validated in previous studies: three items of the wellbeing index were adopted from the WHO wellbeing questionnaire (Topp et al., 2015). Four items are based on OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey from 2018 (OECD, 2019b). The last two batteries consisted of questions that were constructed based on qualitative studies (Laursen, 2021), exploring the relations between governance, daily use of the LMS, and management. We measured teachers’ sense-making of the LMS with questions about how teachers specifically use the LMS in their everyday practice, and questions about whether they feel that the LMS improves their teaching. The last battery measured was transformational leadership, based on survey items that were adjusted so that they asked about the perceived leadership practices regarding the implementation of the LMS. Transformational leadership was measured by asking five questions that measure how the local school management communicates the political visions concerning the LMS, as well as communicating its clear expectations concerning the teachers’ use of the LMS along with clear expectations to teachers’ specific use of the platform. Moreover, how the leadership involves themselves in teachers’ everyday LMS teaching practice, and if the leaders followed the implementation process closely. Based on our theoretical expectations, we tested the following four hypotheses: 1. Transformational leadership reduces the probability that teachers’ do not adopt the LMS despite its mandatory nature. 2. Hypothesis 2: Transformational leadership applied by school managers improves teachers’ wellbeing 3. Transformational leadership will have a positive effect on teachers’ sense-making of the LMS 4. Teachers that can make sense of the LMS have a higher degree of using the platform To test the hypotheses, we used a logistic regression model, seemingly unrelated regression, and decomposition method.

This article aimed to investigate the relationship between transformational leadership and teachers' wellbeing as well as the adoption of innovation by teachers and the specific role that digital sense-making plays in this process. We find that transformational leadership has a clear, strong, and statistically significant relationship (99 percent level) with the use of the platform, and that e.g. leaders who are one point lower on the scale have on average a 8 percentage points higher participation in their schools, all else equal. Concerning wellbeing, we find that transformational leadership has a positive and statistically significant relationship with teachers’ wellbeing. The regression coefficients are at best moderate, with a 0.10 index point increase in wellbeing per one index point increase in transformational leadership. The investigation of sense-making shows that the coefficient for transformational leadership is of substantial size (0.32 ‘sense-making index points’ per 1 index point increase in transformational leadership) and statistically significant. Finally, we find that more than 40 percent of the effect of transformational leadership on LMS usage is explained by that fact that this leadership practice increases sense-making. This suggests that this mechanism is a central explanation for the positive contribution of transformational leadership to the successful implementation of an innovation. Overall, our results indicate that a transformational leadership practice can help to achieve organizational goals and support employees’ wellbeing and sense-making of digital innovations. They also show that this works in a challenging, real-world setting, and that the results hold when we ask very concrete questions about a specific leadership task – instead of merely measuring general leadership styles. Future research should focus on confirming these effects, ideally based on longitudinal data that prospectively enables to follow both leaders and employees through the course of such major changes of their work environment.

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