Turning Teacher Boredom Into Better Teaching: How Leader-Member Exchange, Absorptive Capacity and Teacher Creativity Support Innovation in Schools

In today’s dynamic and increasingly uncertain educational environments, teachers are expected to constantly acquire new knowledge and demonstrate creativity to ensure quality teaching, that is, the integration of good and successful teaching. Job boredom, as an emotion, is regarded as a key driver of individuals’ knowledge-seeking behavior and creativity. Dyadic leader-member exchange relationships (LMX) have been identified as a critical factor in the emotion regulation of teachers. Using data from 1,406 Nigerian teachers, this study investigates the impact of job boredom on teacher creativity and teaching practices, with a particular focus on the mediating and moderating roles of LMX and pedagogical knowledge absorptive capacity (ACAP) in this relationship. The findings indicate a correlation between teacher job boredom and increased activities aimed at recognizing, assimilating, transforming, and exploiting new pedagogical knowledge, as well as a greater variation in teaching practices. ACAP, in turn, emerged as the key driver of teacher creativity and quality teaching. Crucially, the study introduces a novel curvilinear understanding of LMX in educational contexts, demonstrating that high-quality leader-member exchange weakens the positive influence of boredom on these outcomes. While this suggests that high LMX can provide a stabilizing environment for good teaching, it also implies that too much relational support may dampen the creative potential of boredom. Consequently, school leaders should balance support with constructive challenges to ensure that boredom translates into productive pedagogical innovation rather than complacency, while policy frameworks should prioritize training that enhances teachers’ absorptive capacity.