Job Demands, Emotional Exhaustion, and Job Performance Among Nurses: The Moderating Role of Transformational...

Emotional exhaustion is a core component of burnout and a major concern in nursing, where high job demands are associated with lower job performance. The job demands-resources (JD-R) model provides a framework to understand how work conditions affect nurses' functioning, yet the role of leadership enacted by healthcare top management as a distal contextual resource remains underexplored.

To examine the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between job demands and in-role job performance among nurses, and whether nurses' perceptions of transformational leadership enacted by healthcare top management moderate this indirect effect.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among nurses in the province of Quebec, Canada (N = 513). Structural equation modeling was used to test a moderated mediation model.

Job demands were positively associated with emotional exhaustion, which in turn relates negatively to job performance. Emotional exhaustion partially mediated the relationship between job demands and performance. Notably, the indirect effect was weaker among nurses who perceived high levels of transformational leadership from top management, suggesting that this structurally embedded contextual resource attenuates this relationship.

The findings support the health-impairment process of the JD-R model and underscore the buffering role of transformational leadership in mitigating the adverse association between job demands and nurses' performance through emotional exhaustion.

Healthcare organizations should prioritize leadership development at the top management level, as such leadership may contribute to a broader organizational climate, as perceived by nurses. These efforts may help reduce emotional exhaustion and sustain nurses' in-role performance in demanding care environments.