The role of supportive leadership style in enhancing job performance: a quantitative study of secondary school teachers in Pakistan

Secondary school teachers in Pakistan face significant occupational stressors that can impair their job performance, particularly excessive workload and emotional exhaustion. While supportive leadership has been identified as a potential buffer against workplace stressors, its effectiveness in the Pakistani educational context remains understudied. Drawing on Job-Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, this study investigated the relationships between workload, emotional exhaustion, and job performance among public sector secondary school teachers, and examined whether supportive leadership style moderates these relationships. Data were collected through a pen-and-paper survey of 274 teachers from public secondary schools in Pakistan. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis revealed that workload negatively impacts teachers' job performance and is positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Contrary to theoretical expectations, the findings indicate that principals' supportive leadership style neither moderates the relationship between workload and emotional exhaustion nor influences teachers' job performance. These results contribute to our understanding of the limitations of supportive leadership in resource-constrained educational settings and suggest the need for systemic interventions beyond leadership style to address teacher workplace stress.