Artificial intelligence and big data have been applied in education through various technologies, and are gradually changing the teaching methods of teachers, the learning modes of students, and the operation of schools. This will inevitably exert an important impact on school management and leadership. This study aims to explore the influence of university leaders’ digital leadership on teachers’ innovative behavior under the background of reforms in the digital era. Focusing on the mediating roles of job crafting and creative self-efficacy, this paper analyzes how digital leadership affects teachers’ innovative behavior through the two variables. Based on social cognitive theory, this study takes digital leadership as the independent variable, and job crafting and creative self-efficacy as mediating variables, to construct a theoretical framework for analyzing its impact on teachers’ innovative behavior. This study attempts to reveal the internal mechanism of digital leadership influencing teachers’ innovative behavior in the era of educational digital transformation, so as to enrich empirical research related to teachers’ innovative behavior and provide implications for policy formulation and practical application. To achieve the above research objectives, this study focuses on the following four questions:First, what is the current situation of digital leadership, teachers’ job crafting, creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior in Chinese universities? Second, what is the relationship between digital leadership and teachers’ job crafting, creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior in Chinese universities?Third, how do digital leadership, teachers’ job crafting and creative self-efficacy affect innovative behavior in Chinese universities?Fourth, do job crafting and creative self-efficacy play mediating roles in the relationship between digital leadership and teachers’ innovative behavior in Chinese universities? In order to achieve the research objectives, this study established a research model by sorting out existing literature and conducted a questionnaire survey. Firstly, the questionnaire was compiled, and a pre-test was carried out to ensure the validity and reliability of the scale. The formal survey lasted four weeks. A total of 700 questionnaires were distributed to in-service teachers in universities in Heilongjiang Province, Jilin Province and Liaoning Province, and 673 questionnaires were recovered, with a recovery rate of 96.14%. After excluding 15 invalid questionnaires, 658 valid questionnaires were finally used for analysis. SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 29.0 software were used to conduct statistical analysis on the collected data and test the research hypotheses. The results are as follows:First, digital leadership in Chinese universities has a significant positive impact on teachers’ innovative behavior. That is, the higher the level of digital leadership, the more innovative behaviors teachers exhibit.Second, digital leadership in Chinese universities has a significant positive impact on teachers’ job crafting. That is, digital leadership can promote teachers’ job crafting behavior.Third, teachers’ job crafting has a positive impact on innovative behavior. That is, the more job crafting behaviors teachers exhibit, the more innovative behaviors they exhibit.Fourth, teachers’ job crafting plays a mediating role in the relationship between digital leadership and innovative behavior.Fifth, digital leadership has a positive impact on teachers’ creative self-efficacy. That is, the higher the level of digital leadership, the stronger teachers’ creative self-efficacy.Sixth, teachers’ creative self-efficacy has a positive impact on innovative behavior. That is, the stronger the creative self-efficacy, the more innovative behaviors teachers exhibit.Seventh, teachers’ creative self-efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between digital leadership and innovative behavior.