LAUSR

This study examined the importance of three dimensions (authoritarian leadership, benevolent leadership, and moral leadership) of paternalistic leadership for the quality of life of grassroots officials in Shandong Province, China, with burnout as the mediation factor. In 2019, a cross-sectional survey was conducted of 2064 grassroots officials from 106 towns or sub-districts in Shandong. We used the scale developed for measuring paternalistic leadership. Burnout was measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS), and the quality of life was measured by the abbreviated version of World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BRIEF). A structured equation model was implemented in AMOS 21 to examine the contribution of paternalistic leadership (PL) to the quality of life, and the potential mediation of these relationships by burnout. We found that authoritarian leadership (AL) has indirect and negative effects on the quality of life mediated by burnout. Benevolent leadership (BL) was found to be positively and directly associated with the quality of life. Meanwhile, burnout had a partial mediation effect in the relation between moral leadership (ML) and the quality of life. In addition, the level of burnout had a negative and significant influence on the quality of life. The findings showed the significance of PL when considering the effect of burnout on the quality of life of the grassroots officials. We conclude that to enhance their quality of life, leadership style should incline less towards authoritarian styles and more towards benevolent and moral ones.