Previous studies have convincingly shown that leaders’ support for followers’ family lives is of vital importance for followers’ work-family spillover, well-being and job motivation. The role of leader’s own family-to-work spillover, however, remained underexposed thus far. We investigate whether leaders’ family-to-work conflict (FWC) and enrichment (FWE) influence followers’ work attitudes (i.e., job burnout and work engagement). Moreover, we test whether such effects are due to cross-over processes, whereby the leader’s feelings of burnout and engagement crossover to followers through a) role modeling, b) leader’s expression of positive versus negative emotions, and c) the leader’s behavior (undermining or supportive). Using a sample of 199 leaders and 456 followers, we found that the leader’s FWC at time1 had a positive relationship with the follower’s feelings of burnout at time3, through leader’s enhanced feelings of burnout at time2. Similarly, leader’s FWE was positively related to leader’s work engagement at time2, consequently enhancing followers’ work engagement at time3. Our findings supported two crossover mechanisms: role modeling and the leader’ behavior. The results underscore that leader’s family lives matter at work, influencing not only their own enthusiasm at work, but also how they motivate and inspire their followers.