Authentic leadership theory: The case for and against

Effect of authentic leadership on nurses' stress, burnout, presenteeism during COVID-19

PURPOSE

The COVID-19 pandemic has burdened the health-care system and exposed nurses to immense stress. This study therefore aims to investigate nurses' mental well-being who are working with COVID-19-positive patients. Burnout leads to decreased productivity and manifests as emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation (cynicism) and low personal accomplishment (professional efficacy). Authentic leadership is built on a humanistic value system, which is the core value of nurses and other health-care professionals. This study therefore used authentic leadership as the independent variable.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

A cross-sectional quantitative research method was adopted by distributing validated online questionnaires to 1,334 nurses in a private pathology laboratory and 241 questionnaires were analysed with 93.4% female respondents. Multiple linear regression model testing was conducted.

FINDINGS

Multiple regression analyses showed statistically significant negative correlations between authentic leadership and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, job stress and job-stress-related presenteeism, and a positive correlation between authentic leadership and professional efficacy.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This study provides empirical data to encourage organisations to focus on developing authentic leaders to decrease nurses' burnout, job stress and presenteeism. The health-care sector should strive to create an environment where nurses are valued and their talent is recognised to increase employee engagement and commitment.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

There were two contributions in this study: first, to determine whether there is a relationship between authentic leadership job stress and job-stress-related presenteeism. Second, to determine whether there is a relationship between authentic leadership and the three sub-constructs of burnout.

Authentic leadership: Centering context to critically examine authenticity

Conversations on authentic leadership development all too often are devoid of contextual considerations. Little attention is placed on how authentic leadership is actualized by individuals who hold marginalized and minoritized social identities and/or whose lived experiences diverge from the privileged majority; and therefore, must strategically negotiate facets of self to "do leadership." This article illustrates how facets of one's lived experiences, social identities, and worldviews significantly shape and guide how "authentic" leaders show up and practice leadership authentically. This article highlights how elements like code-switching and impression management challenge preconceived notions of what it means to be "good" and "genuine" as a leader to better understand how a theory like authentic leadership gets operationalized. This deeper analysis of authentic leadership provides a nuanced perspective to inform curricular and co-curricular designs that are mindful of context, power, and privilege as well as the uniqueness of the individual.

Investigating the nexus between authentic leadership, employees' green creativity, and psychological environment: evidence from emerging economy

Employees' green creativity is the basic input to organizational innovation capabilities, the prime focus of practitioners to stay competitive, and a mean to solve the society's sustainable issues in dynamic markets. Hence, this study aims to evaluate the nexus between authentic leadership, psychological environment, and employees' green creativity based on the theoretical lenses of social identity and social exchange theories that have rare application in these domains. Data were collected through questionnaires from 367 operational staff members of different technical training centers of renewable energy projects in Rawalpindi and Islamabad regions at Pakistan. The findings reveal that authentic leadership is a significant precursor of employee's green creativity and self-efficacy. In addition, self-efficacy mediates while the environment of trust and safety has non-mediating role in the relationship between authentic leadership and employee's green creativity. This work brings attention to the initiatives in technical training centers for renewable energy projects and contributes to the field of employees' green creativity in the context of authentic leadership and psychological environment based on the philosophy of social identity and social exchange theories.

Authentic Leadership and Psychological Well-Being of Nurses: A Mediated Moderation Model

Aims. This study investigates how authentic leadership influences the psychological well-being of Australian nurses. We examined whether authentic leadership could reduce the prevalence of workplace incivility and tested whether shared values and person-organization (P-O) fit could moderate the relationship between workplace incivility and psychological well-being (PWB). A mediated moderation model underpinned by social learning theory was developed to test the influence of authentic leadership on PWB. Design. We adopted a descriptive correlational research design to test the hypothesized model with a cross-sectional sample of Australian nurses using an online survey. Data were collected across two-waves separated by a six-month interval (N = 230, response rate = 38.3%) to minimize the potential effects of common source bias. The hypotheses were tested using Hayes Process Macro (Model 14) on IBM SPSS. Results. The hypothesized model had good fit indices and supported the mediated moderation model. There was no support for the direct association between authentic leadership and PWB. The supervisor authentic leadership behavior was negatively associated with workplace incivility and PWB. The association between incivility and PWB was positively associated with P-O fit. Nurses with high P-O fit reacted strongly to the positive effect of authentic leadership in reducing workplace incivility, such that they experienced higher levels of PWB. Conclusion. Authentic leadership behavior is important in the healthcare workplace. It reduces workplace incivility and improves PWB for nurses with high levels of congruence. Implications: our study suggests that senior management should deploy strategies through which frontline supervisors can learn and enact authentic leadership behaviors. They will then be better equipped to improve the PWB of their followers by minimizing the prevalence of workplace incivility. Impact: the study found a significant indirect relationship between authentic leadership behavior and psychological well-being, as mediated by workplace incivility and moderated by person-organization fit. The findings highlight the importance of positive leadership behaviors on the well-being outcomes of nurses in Australia.

Impact of authentic leadership on employee turnover intention: Perceived supervisor support as mediator and organizational identification as moderator

Authentic leadership is considered a critical factor for retaining talented employees. However, despite fruitful findings, researchers have paid little attention to how authentic leadership is associated with employee turnover intention. Drawing on organizational support theory, justice literature, and social identity theory, we examine the effects of supervisors' authentic leadership on employee turnover intention to better understand how authentic leaders reduce employees' turnover intention in Asian context. In this study, we focus on the mediating role of perceived supervisor support (PSS) and the moderating role of organizational identification in the relationship between supervisors' authentic leadership and employee turnover intention. To test our hypothesized research model, we adopted a cross-sectional design with a convenience data sampling. We also used a self-report research design in the current study. We collected data from 433 employees from several organizations in Korea. Our respondents rated their immediate supervisors' authentic leadership and their PSS, turnover intention and organizational identification. Confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis, and moderated mediation analysis revealed that: authentic leadership negatively predicted employee turnover intention. In addition, PSS completely mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and employee turnover intention. Furthermore, organizational identification moderates the relationship between PSS and turnover intention. Lastly, organizational identification moderates the mediating effect of PSS on the relationships between perceptions of authentic leadership and employee turnover intention. Herein, we discuss the managerial implications and future research directions arising from our study.

Authentic leadership, perceived organizational support, and psychological capital: Implications for job performance in the education sector

The present study sifts the indirect role of psychological capital (PsyCap) in linking authentic leadership (AL) and job performance (JP). Furthermore, this study investigates the interplay of AL and perceived organizational support (POS) in PsyCap. We tested these assumptions through PROCESS macro with two sources of data collected from 350 employees and their respective colleagues working in education sector organizations in China. The study findings established that AL positively influences employee performance directly and indirectly through PsyCap. POS moderates the effects of AL on PsyCap such that this relationship gets more pronounced in individuals with high levels of POS. All organizations in the education sector can benefit from the current study's practical application. We recommend that firms create and implement these training programs to improve JP since AL is favorably correlated with JP. The organization should pick executives with a vision to encourage e-JP. To promote this behavior, firms can also hold management training seminars, conferences, and programs. Making performance a clear necessity within job criteria will encourage it among personnel. To achieve great results, top management and leadership must inform the workforce about the importance of authentic behavior in the workplace.

“One of these things is not like the others”: the role of authentic leadership in cross-cultural leadership development

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to explore a possible relationship between the presence of authentic organisational leadership and the leadership development experience.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a qualitative exploratory hybrid research design which draws on data from multiple sources. Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews, document analysis and non-participant observations across two case study organisations in Saudi Arabia.

Findings

The authors' findings suggest that the presence of authentic leadership (AL) within an organisation is a significant factor in the leadership development experience. This study also highlights the key importance of advancing leadership development theory that is holistic and comprehensive.

Research limitations/implications

The study was conducted as case studies within a specific social context. Findings cannot be generalised but offer valuable direction for future research.

Originality/value

The research advances leadership development theory by highlighting the inadequacy of the person-focussed perspective and offering exploratory evidence for the role of social context, organisational leadership and organisational artefacts in the leadership development process.

The gaslighting of authentic leadership 2.0

This article is a response to Bill Gardner and Kelly McCauley’s ‘gaslighting’ critique of our text on the perils of authentic leadership. Against gaslighting 1.0 (evilly trying to convince people to doubt their perceptions), we propose gaslighting 2.0 (enlightenment). We argue that organizations face severe problems and challenges that cannot be solved by motivating managers to engage in introspection and being overly preoccupied by their own authenticity. A search for one’s true self is a personal journey of inner growth and heightened self-awareness that individuals, leaders and non-leaders may engage in and find highly beneficial, but outside any notion of exercising influence or power on others to reach career objectives or corporate goals. The broad use of simple recipes with claims of overwhelming positive effects is problematic. Leadership research is often based on highly problematic measures, making most efforts to capture the core phenomenon unreliable. That many people are attracted by simplistic, positive-sounding and ego-enhancing formulas is not the same as evidence for theoretical value and relevance of a truth claim. Taking aspiration as a critical element would call for the development and study of Aspirational Authentic Leadership Theory, which would be something quite different from the static study of how managers score in terms of being true to their values, a core self, and so on. In-depth process studies of managers trying to be authentic navigating dilemmas at work could be an alternative to focus further research on.

Reconstructing authenticity through a multi-paradigmatic umbrella: A process perspective

While there is a substantive body of research that recognizes the importance of authentic leadership theory, critiques have challenged its dominant and positive-focused conceptualization. We synthesize these extant critiques, providing researchers with an integrative understanding of the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical deficiencies facing authenticity in a leadership context.

These deficiencies have thwarted authentic leadership’s development limiting our understanding of what authentic leadership is and who authentic leaders are. Synthesizing what has been said about authentic leadership demonstrates why authenticity needs to be conceived of and studied differently. We offer being-in-becoming as a multi-paradigmatic umbrella which accommodates different ontological foundations of what it means to be authentic. A being-in -becoming approach recognizes that authenticity emanates from a developmental process, suggesting the study of authenticity must also be thought of processually. Studying authenticity as a developmental process holds important theoretical and practical implications as it embraces the processual nature of our dynamic, evolutionary beings.

A systematic review of leader credibility: its murky framework needs clarity

“Leader credibility” is believed by many scholars as essential for effective leadership and is commonly used in discussions about leaders in business, politics, and other areas. Yet despite leader credibility’s strong presence in contemporary press and research, the “leader credibility” construct is not clearly conceptualized, and a grounded understanding of leader credibility is missing. To begin building a solid foundation of leader credibility knowledge, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), which included 108 peer-reviewed articles representing various disciplines. This paper presents our descriptive and content-based findings. Our results reveal a significant research gap: despite the breadth and depth of the research on leader credibility, leader credibility is not consistently defined or measured. We provide an accounting of knowledge to date and illustrate this concept’s weak footing. Finally, we outline an array of relevant research paths that are possible after scholars reconceptualize the leader credibility foundation.

The gaslighting of authentic leadership revisited

Authentic leadership theory (ALT) has become the target for considerable criticism of its conceptual grounding and the methods used for its empirical investigation. Mats Alvesson and Katja Einola (2019) have led the charge in advancing skepticism about ALT by warning of the pitfalls of excessive positivity in leadership research, using ALT as an illustrative example. In a subsequent exchange of letters, the cases against and for authentic leadership were advanced by Alvesson and Einola and Gardner and Karam, respectively (Gardner et al., 2021). As an extension to this debate, Einola and Alvesson (2021) advanced a provocative argument that ALT is not only misguided, but “perilous” to those who believe in it. We felt compelled to reply to this claim by documenting erroneous elements of their arguments that we contend constitute “academic gaslighting” in that they may cause leadership scholars and practitioners to inappropriately discount empirical evidence and their own lived experiences of authentic leadership (Gardner & McCauley, 2022). Alvesson and Einola (2022), in turn, replied with a lengthy defense of their position in which they assert that rather than engaging in gaslighting, their critique constitutes an effort to “enlighten” ALT. In this final entry in this academic exchange, we identify areas of agreement as well as continued disagreements in our exchange and take issue, yet again, with their argument that ALT is inherently dangerous for scholars and practitioners alike. We conclude by asking readers to be wary of these efforts to gaslight ALT and instead rely on the extant empirical evidence and their own lived experiences to draw their own conclusions about the merits of authentic leadership as a topic for academic inquiry and an approach for practicing leadership in the workplace.

The gaslighting of authentic leadership

In a recent critique of authentic leadership theory, Einola and Alvesson (2021) assert that the theory “is not only wrong in a harmless way, but it may be outright perilous to leadership scholars, scholarship, and those who believe in it” (p. 483). They describe four “perils” of authentic leadership theory to support their arguments; in this response paper, we address each “peril”. Unfortunately, their criticism is based, in part, on misleading and inaccurate information about authentic leadership theory, which we identify and correct in this article. We contend that their arguments are at odds with the experiences of authentic leadership that both practitioners and scholars have personally encountered. In essence, through their critique, Einola and Alvesson are engaging in the practice of gaslighting, as they try to convince others to doubt their perceptions of and experiences with authentic leadership, along with the extensive empirical support that has accumulated. Further, Einola and Alvesson suggest that encouraging leaders to strive to be authentic by enhancing their self-awareness, processing positive and negative self-relevant information in a balanced fashion, establishing open and transparent relationships with followers, and living by their core values, is dangerous. We ask readers to consider the merits of their criticism, as well as our alternative, more positive perspective of authentic leadership theory. We suspect that, for many, such introspection will yield a realization that Einola and Alvesson are gaslighting them into questioning their own reality about what it means to lead with authenticity.

The Impact of Authentic Leadership on Innovative Work Behavior: Mediating Roles of Proactive Personality and Employee Engagement

The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of authentic leadership and proactive personality on innovative work behavior through dual mediation approach. This study applied a judgment sampling technique and data were gathered from 311 high-tech manufacturing industries of Shenzhen, China. The measurement model and structural model were tested using structural equation modeling technique through AMOS 24 software. The results indicate that authentic leadership has a positive and significant effect on proactive personality. Meanwhile, findings show that proactive personality has a significant impact on innovative work behavior. Moreover, findings show that proactive personality positively mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and innovative work behavior. Furthermore, findings illustrate that work engagement positively mediates the relationship between proactive personality and innovative work behavior. This study provides insightful and valuable implications to high-tech manufacturing industries executives and regulators interested in organizational productivity.

Authentic Leadership and Task Performance via Psychological Capital: The Moderated Mediation Role of Performance Pressure

Authentic leadership has received significant academic attention. It is now imperative to understand how authentic leadership’s effectiveness varies in different situations or conditions, which is vital to reestablishing it as an independent leadership theory. To this end, this study aims to verify the positive influence of authentic leadership on the task performance of members within an organization. Further, it seeks to confirm the situations that moderate the relationship between authentic leadership and task performance. Specifically, the mediating mechanism of psychological capital in this relationship, the moderating effect of performance pressure on the relationship between authentic leadership and psychological capital, and the moderated mediating effect are demonstrated. This study used a time-lagged survey to test the hypotheses; two online surveys were staggered by 1 month and completed by 485 participants in South Korea. The empirical analysis confirmed all the proposed hypotheses. First, authentic leadership was positively related to task performance. Second, psychological capital had a mediating effect on the relationship between authentic leadership and task performance. Third, task performance pressure was negatively related to the relationship between authentic leadership and psychological capital. Specifically, the strength of the indirect effect increased as the employee performance pressure decreased. Based on these results, various theoretical and practical implications are suggested for the extended application of the authentic leadership theory in organizations and future research directions are proposed.

The development and practice of authentic leadership: a cultural lens

Purpose

Despite increasing interest and scholarship on authentic leadership, definitions of the construct remain contested. In addition, limited research exists on its enactment in practice and its sustainability in a global context. The purpose of this study was to explore the practice of authentic leadership and understand more about how it is cultivated and sustained.

Design/methodology/approach

To address these issues, an international sample of leaders nominated by peers as exemplifying authenticity in their leadership was interviewed. This study used consensual qualitative research (CQR; Hill, 2012; Hill et al., 1997), a team-based, exploratory methodology, to conduct data analysis.

Findings

This study describes the results of the analysis, highlighting leaders’ beliefs, values and behaviors; their leadership development and the barriers and supportive factors they experienced as leaders. The findings from this exploratory analysis across all cases, including subgroups, may help contextualize the complexity of authentic and sustainable leadership and provide better understanding of authentic leadership development.

Research limitations/implications

Additional research on social identities and training in leadership are critical. The results of this study suggest new directions in studying the development of authentic leaders as well as in researching the experiences of organizations and team members.

Practical implications

This study provides insight and direction for individuals and organizations seeking to better understand the practice of authentic leadership, its development and how it can be sustained over time and across contexts and social identities.

Originality/value

This exploratory approach involving interviews with leaders around the globe provides information about the direct lived experiences of leaders identified as authentic by their peers. This study further highlights the leaders’ critical leadership beliefs and practices, as well as ways in which they cultivated and learned to sustain their leadership practices. This study also sheds light on ways in which experiences might differ across gendered and cultural contexts.

Friend or fiend? An interpretative phenomenological analysis of moral and relational orientation in authentic leadership

Authentic leadership has been developed with insufficient empirical challenge to its definitional components, and alternative conceptualizations have largely been ignored. The theory remains heavily criticized and its distinctiveness from other higher-purpose leadership theories remains in doubt, leading to a circular debate as to its usefulness in practice. In response to the call to return to the definitional drawing table, this article presents the findings of an interpretative phenomenological study that reimagines authentic leadership as a two-component moral and relational model that is closer to Heidegger’s notions of ‘being true’ and ‘care’. The study inductively explores how leaders themselves make sense of authenticity in practice, when it is enacted by their own leaders within the social exchange relationship. It richly describes how managers perceive and attribute authenticity to their leaders within the lived experience of contemporary work. The study also identifies that working for a leader who is perceived as authentic feels like a friendship and is beneficial to followers’ own psychological experience of work, facilitates their own authentic expression and is worthy of retention as a distinct leadership theory that explains how performance is enabled within proximal leader relationships.

Fostering Workplace Innovation through CSR and Authentic Leadership: Evidence from SME Sector

The cut-throat situation of competitiveness in almost every business sector, followed by globalization, shortened product life cycles, and rapid technological changes have raised the importance of innovation to overrun the rivals. Scholars have established that appropriate leadership style is a key enabler for organizational success. However, it is not clear in existing literature how the concept of authentic leadership is related to innovative work behavior (IWB). Likewise, the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to induce IWB is also vague in current literature. Thus, the basic purpose of the current study was to test the relationship of CSR and IWB with the mediating effect of authentic leadership. The proposed model was tested in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sector of China. The data were collected through a questionnaire that was distributed among different respondents of the current survey. The data were obtained from a dyad of supervisor and subordinate serving in different SMEs in Wuhan city of China. The study used the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique to validate different hypotheses. The empirical results confirm that CSR positively relates to IWB while authentic leadership partially mediates this relationship. The findings of the current survey will be helpful for policymakers to recognize employees as a source of innovation through CSR and authentic leadership.

The perils of authentic leadership theory

In this commentary, we discuss perils of authentic leadership theory (ALT) in a modest effort to help weed out one theory that has gone amiss to pave the way for new ideas. We make an argument for why ALT is not only wrong in a harmless manner, but it may be outright perilous to leadership scholars, scholarship and those who believe in it. It may undermine academic work, delegitimize university institutions, make false promises to organizations, and cause identity trouble through encouraging managers and others overeager to live up to the proposed formula. We argue that leadership and authenticity should be kept separate as interests and themes of study.