This study aims to explore the influence of elementary school principals’ instructional leadership, teacher collaboration, and teacher self-efficacy on participation in professional development activities. With teacher collaboration and self-efficacy as mediating variables, it examines the effects of principals’ instructional leadership on teacher participation in professional development through collaboration and the impact of collaboration on participation via self-efficacy. Additionally, it investigates the moderating effect of principals’ instructional leadership on the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and professional development participation. The study focuses on principals and teachers from Taiwanese elementary schools participating in the TALIS 2018 survey, including 200 principals and 3,494 teachers. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was employed for multi-level analysis to examine the influence of variables across teacher and school levels. The findings include: (1) Teacher self-efficacy directly influences participation in professional development activities; (2) School leadership positively impacts professional development participation; (3) Teacher collaboration has a positive effect on professional development participation; (4) School leadership enhances teacher collaboration; (5) Teacher collaboration positively affects classroom management and teaching practices; (6) Professional collaboration indirectly influences participation in professional development through classroom teaching; (7) School leadership moderates the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and professional development participation; and (8) Principals’ leadership indirectly affects participation through professional collaboration.