Abstract
Digital transformation has rendered leaders both more visible and more accountable. While ethical digital leadership is often positioned as stabilising force within digitally mediated work systems, its implications to employee well-being remain theoretically indetermined. Drawing on Job Demands-Resource (JD-R) theory and configurational perspective, this study examines how ethical digital leadership interacts with technostress creators, techno-work engagement, and psychological safety to shape psychological well-being. Using a three-wave time lagged design with 412 private-sector employees and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we identified asymmetrical pathways to both high and low psychological well-being. Findings reveal that well-being is most consistently achieved when techno-work engagement and psychological safety co-occur, whereas ethical digital leadership functions as a contingent contextual enabler. By revealing multiple equifinal pathways to employee well-being, this study advances leadership scholarship and refines understanding of well-being dynamics in digitally intensified workplaces.