This paper examines whether the detrimental effects of leaders’ work-family conflict extend beyond themselves and have a contagion effect on the wellbeing of followers. We test a model where leaders’ conflict influences their own depression and then extends to their followers depression, mediated by their leadership effectiveness. Using a sample of 179 leader and 411 followers, we found leaders’ conflict from work and home positively influenced their depression and were moderated with each other, leading to higher levels of depression when both conflicts were high. Leaders’ depression was negatively related to follower ratings of the leader’s effectiveness, and positively related to follower depression, while leader’s effectiveness was negatively related to follower depression. Furthermore, conflict originating in the home was negatively related to leader effectiveness and positively related to follower depression. Finally, leaders’ depression and effectiveness moderated towards follower depression, with the lowest follower depression levels found when leaders’ had low depression but high effectiveness. Monte Carlo analysis also confirmed the mediation effects at every stage of the model. The present study supports our assertion that leaders’ work-family conflict can have detrimental effects beyond themselves influencing not only their own depression, but their performance effectiveness and their followers’ depression illustrating contagion effects.