Leadership and work-family conflict

What is it about?

Work-family conflict can be very detrimental for employees and the organization. It can result in low job satisfaction, work effort, burnout and overall fatigue. This article shows how leadership can lower work-family conflict. It shows that when you have a good relationship with your manager, your degree of work-family conflict is lower. Furthermore, we show that having a good relationship with your manager can even lead to positive work family spillover: you feel better at home because you feel good at work. For employees, this means that they should invest in their relationship with their manager. Likewise, for managers it means that they should try to develop good working relationships with their employees. In the end, this may be good for both the employees and the organization.

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Why is it important?

A first added value lies in linking leadership to a positive work-family variable: work-family facilitation. A second added value lies in introducing two mediators – work pressure and meaningful work – which worked adequately both theoretically and empirically, instead of the sometimes problematic mediator empowerment. We show that high leader-member exchange is related to lower perceived work pressure, which leads to less work-family interference. Furthermore, we show that high leader-member exchange leads to more meaningful work (employees get more interesting work), which leads to more work-family facilitation.

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