How do authoritarian and benevolent leadership affect employee work–family conflict? An emotional regulation perspective

We draw on the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, Emotion, 13 (3), 359–365 2013 ) to propose that the two main components of paternalistic leadership – authoritarianism and benevolence, would induce negative emotions in employees that cannot be freely expressed at work, and how the act of emotion suppression would result in employee work–family conflict. Data from 218 employee–spouse dyads from three Chinese companies provide strong support for our hypotheses, revealing that both authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership are positively related to employee work–family conflict through the mediation of employee emotion suppression in the workplace. Furthermore, employee power distance orientation positively influences the effect of authoritarian leadership, but negatively impacts the effect of benevolent leadership, on employee emotion suppression. These findings reveal the dark side of paternalistic leadership and shed light on the mechanisms through which leadership affect employee experience in the life domain and its boundary condition. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications in the context of Chinese organizations and beyond.