Psychological pathways between leadership behavior and work-family balance: the mediating roles of employee satisfaction and perceived support

This study aims to explore the impact of human resource management practice on employees’ work-family balance (WFB), and examine the role of employee satisfaction (ES) and perceived organizational support (POS) as mediating variables. The structural equation model (SEM) is used to test the research hypothesis by analyzing employees’ questionnaire data of employees in different industries. It is found that leadership has a direct positive impact on employees’ WFB, which is partly realized through the mediating effect of ES. Performance management (PM) practices indirectly promote WFB by enhancing the POS. The SEM’s results show that the standardized path coefficient of leadership on ES is 0.56 ( p < 0.001), and that of ES on WFB is 0.45 ( p < 0.001). The standardized path coefficients of POS on WFB and PM on POS are 0.39 and 0.32 ( p < 0.01). These findings highlight the importance of considering the potential impact on employees’ WFB when designing human resource management strategies. It can be concluded that good leadership and PM practices not only directly improve employees’ WFB but also indirectly contribute to this goal by increasing ES and POS.