Teachers' authoritarian leadership and students' well-being: the role of emotional exhaustion and narcissism.

Background: Teachers' leadership styles have a significant impact on students' academic performance, physical health and mental health. Authoritarian leadership, as a typical leadership style, is prevalent in the teacher community. The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanisms by which authoritarian leadership impacts students' well-being. We also examined the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of narcissism.

Methods: This study is based on conservation of resources theory. We selected a sample of 369 students from a university in Sichuan province, collected data through two time points, and tested the data using SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 22.0.

Results: It was found that teachers' authoritarian leadership negatively impacted students' well-being and that emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between authoritarian leadership and well-being. Narcissism not only moderated the effect of authoritarian leadership on emotional exhaustion, but also moderated the mediation role of emotional exhaustion.

Conclusions: Our findings enriched the research on authoritarian leadership and narcissism, and also had important practical implications for future teacher teaching in higher education.