Purpose This paper aims to attempt to explore the nature of relationship between work–life balance and emotional exhaustion experienced by the employed individuals while working from home during the pandemic COVID-19 induced nationwide lockdown in the Indian setting. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 180 working professionals in North India who were working from home during the lockdown. PROCESS macro developed for SPSS was used to test the hypotheses. Findings Findings depicted that in comparison to men, women felt more emotional exhaustion due to personal life interference in work during work from home period. Surprisingly, the relationship between work interference with personal life, and emotional exhaustion did not differ by gender. It was found that the participative leadership could contribute to reduction of work interference with personal life, and through such an influence, emotional exhaustion experienced by an employee could be reduced to some extent. Originality/value Many previous studies have explored the nature of the relationship between work–life balance and emotional exhaustion, but rarely any study could cover any Pandemic affected working scenario. This study attempted to investigate such a relationship when employees were obligated to mandatorily work from home during the countrywide lockdown.

Purpose This study aims to explore how some organizational leaders are making successful attempts toward making “social contributions” toward the underprivileged or needy stakeholders in the society. This study suggests empirical themes about behavioral patterns of such organizational leaders and illustrates the need to transcend erstwhile “avoid harm” socially responsible leadership. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected on 52 Indian organizational leaders and were analyzed following the guidelines of constructionist grounded theory. Findings Findings suggested that organizational leaders who facilitated some form of social contributions in the life of different stakeholders had “unconditional adherence to social contributions,” they were “pertinacious about going the extra mile” to facilitate social contributions and at times their “existence as an enthusiastically innovative change agent” also facilitated social contributions to the lives of different stakeholders. Social implications This study might initiate discussion around the behavioral patterns of organizational leaders who are attempting to make society a better place by leading or facilitating social contributions. Identified exemplary behavioral patterns might encourage more exploratory studies directed toward the identification of other forms of socially contributive leadership attributes. Originality/value Emphasis on investigating corporate social responsibility (CSR) from individual-level perspective advocated the importance of the psychological foundation of CSR. This study empirically identifies behavioral patterns that characterize organizational leaders who had a strong commitment to make social contributions to society. Patterns identified corresponded to cognitive and behavioral approaches of organizational leaders that were instrumental in actualizing social contributions to the Indian society.