Authentic Leadership

My recent retirement from academia and an invitation to write this editorial have afforded me the opportunity to reflect on my work in researching authentic leadership theory in nursing and healthcare. When I was completing my PhD more than a decade ago, I searched for a leadership perspective that aligned with my learnings in a variety of previous practice and leadership roles. Basically, my leadership experiences contributed to a belief that authenticity is key: being oneself is extremely important to personal health and well-being and to effectiveness as a leader. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Authentic leadership encourages self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and Internalized moral perspective of information and the relations with respect to the leaders working with their subordinates, consequently cultivating positive self-improvement. This study related the idea of authentic leadership in refining employee engagement. The concepts of authentic leadership incorporate self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and relational transparency. An extensive literature review was done to infer the findings, conclusions, and recommendations. In perspective on the assessed review, authentic leadership positively affect and employee engagement. There was a significant and positive connection between authentic leadership, work fulfilment and employee engagement. Numerous studies concluded that teams with more authentic characteristics in their leaders, had more satisfied and engaged employees. The influential mentors were perceived as authentic leaders who acted within dimensions that were consistent with authentic leadership theory: self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and internalized moral perspective. Employee engagement is positively influenced by quality employee organization relationships and positive internal reputation. Results showed that both leader’s consistency between words and actions as well as their balanced processing are positively related to employee engagement. As an antecedent, authentic leadership critically affects the nurturing of an organization’s transparency and positive employee relational outcomes, which, in turn, enhance reputation and thus overall performance. Keywords: Authentic Leadership, Employee Engagement & American Workplaces.

This study compares three emerging forms of positive leadership that emphasize ethical and moral behavior (i.e., authentic leadership, ethical leadership, and servant leadership) with transformational leadership in their associations with a wide range of organizationally relevant measures. While scholars have noted conceptual overlap between transformational leadership and these newer leadership forms, there has been inadequate investigation of the empirical relationships with transformational leadership and the ability (or lack thereof) of these leadership forms to explain incremental variance beyond transformational leadership. In response, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to provide a comprehensive assessment of these emerging leadership forms’ relationships with variables evaluated in the extant literature. Second, we tested the relative performance of each of these leadership forms in explaining incremental variance, beyond transformational leadership, in nine outcomes. We also provide relative weights analyses to further evaluate the relative contributions of the emerging leadership forms versus transformational leadership. The high correlations between both authentic leadership and ethical leadership with transformational leadership coupled with their low amounts of incremental variance suggest that their utility is low unless they are being used to explore very specific outcomes. Servant leadership, however, showed more promise as a stand-alone leadership approach that is capable of helping leadership researchers and practitioners better explain a wide range of outcomes. Guidance regarding future research and the utility of these three ethical/moral values–based leadership forms is provided.

This study examines the influence of authentic, ethical, and transformational leadership on leadership effectiveness and employees’ trust in leaders in a project-based Indonesian state-owned enterprise. Data were collected from 90 employees of PT Wijaya Karya (Persero) Tbk — Division of Operations 5, Kalimantan. A quantitative causal design was applied using purposive sampling, and analysis was conducted with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Results reveal that ethical and transformational leadership positively and significantly affect leadership effectiveness, while authentic leadership does not. Ethical leadership also directly enhances trust in leaders, whereas authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and leadership effectiveness do not significantly affect trust. Mediation analysis shows that leadership effectiveness partially mediates the effects of ethical and transformational leadership on trust. The study provides theoretical contributions by clarifying the distinct roles of leadership styles, and practical implications for leadership development strategies in project-based organizations.

This study aimed to explain the effect of authentic and ethical leadership on the psychological empowerment of nurses. Ethics-related leadership styles can play an important role in improving employee performance by influencing job satisfaction. However, no study has investigated ethics-related leadership and its impact on the psychological empowerment of nurses. The present study is a descriptive correlational study with emphasis on structural equations. A random sample of 384 nurses in public hospitals in Tehran responded to three self-report questionnaires. The authentic leadership variable explains 74.5% of the variance of the psychological empowerment variable. In addition, the variable of ethical leadership explains 87.7% of the variance of psychological empowerment variable. Ethical and authentic leadership is effective on the nurses' psychological empowerment. Ethical and authentic leadership is necessary for managers to psychologically empower nursing staff. Increasing awareness of capabilities of nurses and how decisions and behaviours affect them, balanced information processing, observance of ethics in the workplace, transparency in communication, information and power sharing, all impact justice in the workplace.

A leader’s morality is a starting point in the making of a leader. It is one of the oldest debates in the philosophy of management. Since many positive outcomes have been associated with leader morality, a host of moral forms of leadership have been suggested and implemented in the organizations. The 21st century has particularly seen a rise in the moral forms such as ethical leadership, servant leadership and authentic leadership. The paper attempts to integrate the overlapping literature in this domain, to offer clarity in the construct of ethical, authentic and servant leadership, especially on their foundational principle of morality. A review of literature, with an agenda to juxtapose it with moral theories and moral development, has been undertaken. Deeper delving helps in constructing parallels between consequentialism, virtue ethics and deontology with servant, authentic and ethical leadership respectively as points of distinction. Along with a discrete moral identity and moral sensitivities, moral motivation and moral action as other matter of differential outlook of the leaders. Despite these perceived differences, the moral forms of leadership converge on the aspect of care. So while we may see separate branches in the moral forms of leadership, they share a common root of morality.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the role of trigger events and leadership crucibles in the lives of authentic leaders. The study was based on two theories: authentic leadership theory and born versus made theory.Design/methodology/approachParticipants were included in the study if they scored between 64 and 80 on the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ). The qualified leaders were then asked to participate in a qualitative interview utilizing an interview guide born out of the relevant literature. The interview followed the guidelines of the Critical Incident Technique (CIT).FindingsThe data indicated that trigger events and leadership crucibles play a significant role in authentic leadership development.Practical implicationsPractitioners should emphasize the prominent themes of self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing and moral perspective and the connection with other themes that emerged from the current study when developing or training leaders. Furthermore, practitioners concerned with creating an authentic leadership culture may consider the findings of the current study to develop and employ hiring and promotion strategies that increase the probabilities of hiring and promoting leaders that exhibit authentic leadership behaviors.Originality/valueThe findings of the research indicate that trigger events and crucibles both affect authentic leadership development. The research findings confirm characteristics associated with authentic leadership theory were predominant in the participants. However, one theme that prevailed was that of spirituality, which may or may not be considered to be part of an authentic leader's moral perspective

A meta-analytic review of authentic and transformational leadership: A test for redundancy

Transformational and authentic leadership are two models of leadership, which have some similarities and are relevant to sport. However, these leadership models are also distinct and consequently may predict athlete outcomes differently. Authentic leadership has received little attention in sport and so research is needed to examine how it is unique in terms of what it adds to dominant sport leadership models. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether authentic leadership (a) is empirically distinct from transformational leadership and (b) adds to transformational leadership by explaining unique variance in commitment and enjoyment. A total of 421 (227 female, Mage = 20.32) team sport athletes took part in the study by completing a questionnaire. Authentic leadership was correlated to transformational leadership, suggesting transformational and authentic leadership show some convergent validity. However, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) revealed that authentic leadership also shows discriminant validity to transformational leadership and has incremental predictive power above that of transformational leadership, in terms of predicting athletes’ enjoyment and commitment. Our findings enhance our understanding of authentic leadership in sport and clearly show that it is distinct from transformational leadership. They also highlight the importance of authentic leadership and how it adds to transformational leadership in terms of predicting athletes’ commitment and enjoyment.

One of the newest theories to gain widespread interest is authentic leadership. Part of the rationale for developing a model and subsequent instrument to measure authentic leadership was a concern that the more popular theory, the full range model of leadership and its instrument, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (Bass & Avolio, 1985), did not sufficiently emphasize aspects of leader emotional intelligence (EI), such as self-awareness (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). In its current configuration, the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) (Walumba, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing & Peterson, 2008) measures four dimensions of leadership: relational transparency, internal moral perspective, balanced processing, and self-awareness. In a recent meta-analysis of authentic leadership, Banks, McCauley, Davis, Gardner, and Guler (2016) found that, overall, authentic leadership is highly correlated with transformational leadership (k = 23, N = 5,414, rho = .72). The Banks et al. study, however, reported no meta-analytic analyses between emotional intelligence and authentic leadership. In a meta-analysis performed in 2010 by Harms and Crede, self-ratings of emotional intelligence and transformational leadership were highly correlated (k = 47, N = 4,994, rho = .56). Given that a) EI is strongly related to transformational leadership, b) authentic leadership is very strongly related to transformational leadership, and c) part of the original rationale for creating a model and instrument to measure authentic leadership included a need to include more self-awareness in a leadership model, exploring the degree to which emotional intelligence is related to authentic leadership is important. In this study, 1,028 working adults completed the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) (Schutte, 2009) and the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (Walumba et al., 2008). The sample was 61% female, 30% held a college degree or higher, and the mean age was 29.6 years. An exploratory factor analysis using the principal components method with varimax rotation resulted in a 2-factor solution. While exploratory in nature, this study indicates that the components of the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire seem to be measuring something different than emotional intelligence measured by the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test.

在現今動盪的全球環境中，競爭日趨激烈，導致企業不得不採取非常手段去因應，其中常見的行為包括惡意併購或組織精簡，因此部屬對領導者的信任危機，對組織中的領導者而言已成為一個值得重視的問題。成功的領導者或許都有自己獨特的領導風格，而領導本身即領導者以影響力來影響部屬完成組織或個人的目標任務，換言之，為了達到組織的目標，領導者必須發展出自己的領導風格，以獲取部屬的信任，改善與部屬的關係，進而提升領導效能來達成組織目標。本研究目的在探討真誠領導與轉換型領導對於信任、領導者─成員交換關係與領導效能的影響，以及組織精簡為干擾變數之下，是否影響真誠領導和轉換型領導對信任和領導者─成員交換關係的正向效果。 本研究利用網路與紙本問卷發放，為了避免共同方法變異的問題，將問卷分成兩份，其中自變數(真誠領導、轉換型領導)一份，以及依變數(信任、LMX、領導效能)一份，且題項皆隨機編排。兩份問卷間隔二週發放，共回收152份有效問卷。各量表測量均有良好的信度，經驗證性因素分析結果也確立具建構效度，並利用SPSS進行研究變項相關與階層迴歸分析。 結果顯示在控制年資、職位與跟隨年數的影響後，真誠領導與轉換型領導分別對信任、領導者─成員交換和領導效能有顯著正向影響，但這種正向影響會隨著員工經歷過組織精簡而減少，顯示組織精簡會對真誠領導和轉換型領導對信任和領導者─成員交換有干擾關係。表示員工經歷過組織精簡後會對主管的信任與領導者─成員交換關係降低。由本研究結果瞭解到真誠領導與轉換型領導對領導效能的重要性，企業必須重視領導者所扮演的角色，提升真誠領導與轉換型領導的程度，對員工的信任與改善與主管的關係產生正面的助益，給予成員甚至社會一個良好的典範。此外本研究對於真誠領導和轉換型領導的運用提出實際作法與建言，期能對實務界的施行有實質貢獻。最後，提出對未來研究建議與本研究之限制。

Some scholars have stated there is a distinct difference between authentic versus inauthentic leadership (Shamir and Eilam, The Leadership Quarterly, 16, 395–417, 2005). Still other scholars have indicated servant leadership involves aspects of authenticity or a state of being authentic (Hotep, Journal of Pan African Studies, 3, 11–26, 2010; Malphurs, Being leaders: The nature of authentic Christian leadership. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003). At first glance, the two concepts of authentic leadership and servant leadership may seem very similar, closely related (Avolio and Gardner, Leadership Quarterly, 16, 315, 2005), or almost interrelated, or that one may be considered subordinate to the other. Upon closer examination, the two appear to be quite distinguishable from one another. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a cross-sectional conspectus of the servant leadership construct in comparison to authentic leadership. Included are operational definitions of authentic leadership, transformational leadership, and servant leadership to provide discernable working distinctions between each construct based upon content discussed in previous chapters. Further, this chapter classifies fundamental details regarding the origin and progression of servant leadership as a distinct construct from authentic leadership. Then this chapter will discuss prevailing servant leadership themes found in academia, in theological/scripture, and among a sampling of worldviews. Finally, this chapter closes with a summarized comparison between servant leadership along with implications for research and praxis.

A new type of leadership that is genuine and values based laden known as authentic leadership has emerged (Zhang, Bowers, & Mao, 2020). This form of leadership acknowledges and accommodates the legitimate needs of cultures, communities, organizations, groups and even individuals in an integrative way, rather than only being centred around organizational perspectives (Begley, 2001). George and Sims (2007, pp. 131–132) described authentic leaders as: ‘develop self-awareness from their experiences; act on that awareness by practicing their values, sometimes at substantial risk; balance their motivations with both internal and external drives; keep a strong support team around themselves; and, live integrated, grounded lives’. Early critiques to emerging authentic leadership theories described it as lacking some of the key elements of an effective leader. Particularly, it lacks focus on the leader but rather focused on the process and leadership practices a leader enacts to influence their followers (Zhang, Bowers, & Mao, 2020). Crawford et al. (2020, p. 22) later defined authentic leaders as initials who ‘influence and motivate followers to achieve goals through their sincerity and positive moral perspective, enabled through heightened awareness and balanced processing’. Other researchers concluded authentic leaders are individuals who exhibit behaviours in four ways: self-awareness; relational transparency; balanced processing; and internalized moral perspective (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016; Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014). Kulophas et al. (2015) placed the concept of authentic leadership in an educational context. They viewed authentic school leaders as one ‘who aspires to understand oneself and their teachers and behave in accordance to one’s core values to steer the school towards its goals’. Authentic educational leaders focus on their self-knowledge, is sensitive to the orientations of others that leads to a synergy of leadership action (Srivastava & Dhar, 2019). Authentic leaders have the inner ability to practice what they preach and lead their followers by setting examples (Srivastava & Shree, 2019). Furthermore, authentic leaders are motivated to encourage their followers to become leaders in the future (Wang et al., 2014). However, developing authenticity in a school principal is not an easy task (Srivastava & Dhar, 2016). This is due to the school’s limited context that depends on spontaneous situations to occurs in schools. Thus, developing authentic leadership in a school principal requires specific guidelines (Srivastava & Shree, 2019). Branson (2007) stressed authentic leaders should believe in reflective practicing via analyzing and implementing their own values. This clearly indicates that authentic school leaders must adhere to their values before taking any decision (Srivastava & Dhar, 2019). Principals should analyse the situation and implement what they believe is good for all as their decisions affect every section of the education community. A growing body of evidence has identified principals’ authentic leadership as being related to a series of school desirable outcomes such as teachers’ attitude towards their profession and behaviour, more specifically, organizational citizenship and withdrawal behaviour (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014), teacher trust (Fox et al., 2015), emotional intelligence (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016), psychological capital (Feng, 2016), academic optimism (Kulophas et al., 2018), teachers’ intentions to return (Bird et al., 2012) and work engagement (Kulophas et al., 2018; Wang & Bird, 2011). However, the body of knowledge is still relatively limited. Thus, researching more about how principals enact authentic leadership in schools to drive their school towards its goals is critical.

Authors write annual CEO letters to convey specific messages but may not reflect on the leadership styles applied in their communications. The purpose of the current paper is to explore the usage of authentic, servant, transactional, and transformational leadership styles in leadership letters of Fortune 500 companies as a function of nine industrial sectors. The primary methodology for data analysis comprised content analysis and stepwise multiple regression. Results revealed CEO letter writers used transformational leadership most frequently, followed by transactional leadership. Stepwise multiple regression results revealed direct relationships existed between consumer goods and authentic leadership; services, and servant leadership; and utilities and transactional leadership. Additionally, a proposed template for future leadership letters was incorporated to enrich communication in CEO letters by applying specific leadership styles using new leadership paradigms to bolster the existent transformational leadership style.

This study investigates the relationship between authentic leadership and employees’ innovation, with a particular focus on the mediating role of technological diversity in Pakistan’s telecommunication sector. Drawing upon authentic leadership theory, the research conceptualizes leadership through four key dimensions: self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and internalized moral perspective. A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was adopted, and data were collected from 379 executive-level employees across four major telecommunication companies—Jazz, Telenor, Ufone, and Zong—using proportionate stratified random sampling. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS was employed for data analysis. The findings confirm that authentic leadership positively influences employees’ innovation and that technological diversity partially mediates this relationship. The results highlight the strategic importance of integrating ethical leadership with technological capability to foster innovation in fast-evolving and competitive industries. The study contributes both theoretically and practically by emphasizing the role of leadership style and technological resources in driving innovation performance in emerging market contexts.