Antecedents and consequences of authentic leadership

A

ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP

Garazi Azanza1 , Marjan Gorgievski1, Juan A. Moriano3 & Fernando Molero3

1 University of Deusto

2 Erasmus University Rotterdam 3 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)

Purpose

1) to examine what predicts followers perceptions of

leaders’ authentic leadership, specifically leaders'

self-perceptions, leaders’ PsyCap, gender and leader-

follower distance, and 2) its effect on employees’

PsyCap and work engagement.

Authentic leadership

Positive

Psychological

Capacities

Positive

Organizational

Context

Positive

self-development

Authentic

leadership

Trigger events/

Challenges

Confidence

Hope

Optimism

Resiliency

Highly

developed

organization

Authentic leadership development model. Adapted from Avolio and Luthans (2003).

Positive outcomes

on followers



Self-awareness

Relational transparency

Balanced processing

Internal moral perspective

Components of authentic leadership (Walumbwa et al., 2008)

Adapted from Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing & Peterson (2008)


Authentic leadership vs other leadership theories

Theoretical Components Authentic

Leadership

Transformational

Leadership

Ethical

Leadership


Leader self-awareness

Relational transparency *

Internalized moral

perspective

Balanced processing *

Ethical leadership

Moral person

Moral manager * *

Transformational leadership

Idealized influence *

Inspirational motivation

Intellectual stimulation

Individual consideration *

Positive

Psychological

Capacities

Positive

Organizational

Context

Positive

self-development

Authentic

leadership

Trigger events/

Challenges

Confidence

Hope

Optimism

Resiliency

Highly

developed

organization


Antecedents of authentic leadership

Positive outcomes

on followers

PsyCap


Leader’s self-perceptions

Leaders’ self-awareness is considered a key element for self-others agreement:

A self-aware leader may be more conscious of how others perceive him or her,

resulting in a more accurate self-assessment (Atwater & Yammarino, 2006).

Since self-awareness is a component of authentic leadership, we expect to find a

relationship between self-ratings of authentic leadership and followers’ perception.


Leader-follower distance

Followers’ perception about their leaders can be influenced by the leader-follower

distance (Antonakis & Atwater, 2002).

The different impact of distant or close leaders on followers may stem from the

difference in the information followers have about their leaders (Dvir & Shamir,

2003).

Authentic leaders may be able to give information about their relational

transparency and build authentic relationships in close leader-follower situations, and

having a frequent communication may give the followers the opportunity to know

the leaders deeper and evaluate their moral perspective.


Leader’s gender

Women exceed men on transformational factors (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, van

Engen & Vinkenburg, 2003) and are perceived to display more transformational

behaviors (Vinkenburg, van Engen, Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2011)

Women exhibit higher ethical beliefs and intentions to act more ethically than men

(Valentine & Rittenburg, 2007).

Given that authentic leadership is highly correlated with transformational leadership

(Walumbwa et al., 2008) and considering the moral component of authentic leadership,

we expect that women will be evaluated to be more authentic than men.

Positive

organizational

outcomes on

followers

Positive

Psychological

Capacities

Positive

Organizational

Context

Positive

self-development

Authentic

leadership

Trigger events/

Challenges

Confidence

Hope

Optimism

Resiliency

Highly

developed

organization


PsyCap

Work engagement

Consequences of authentic leadership

Consequences of authentic leadership

PsyCap

PsyCap may explain the positive effects of authentic leaders on their followers

(Walumbwa et al., 2008).

Through contagion effects (Ilies et al., 2005), the psychological strengths of authentic

leaders may promote the employees' PsyCap (Luthans, et al., 2007).

Work Engagement

The relationship between work engagement and authentic leadership has been

previously analysed (Walumbwa, Wang, Wang, Schaubroeck & Avolio, 2010).

Authentic leadership may positively impact on employees’ engagement through a

modelling process which may transmit leader’s engagement and commitment to his

or her work and the organization to the followers.

Research hypotheses

H1

+

+ +

+

+

Leader’s PsyCap

Self-rated authentic leadership

Work engagement

Followers’ PsyCap

Follower-

rated

authentic

leadership

Leader’s gender

Communication

frequency

+

H2

H4

H6

H5

H3

Method

40 team leaders and 190 team members from big private Spanish retail companies. On average, each team had 5.9 members (SD = 1.48) Employees: 33.88 years old (SD = 7.49) and predominantly female (65.3%). 48.7%

had graduated from vocational school and 31.6% had a university degree. On average, participants had been members of their current organization for 5.04 years (SD = 3.77).

Leaders: 35.94 years old (SD = 6.06) and primarly female (61.1%) and had a

university degree (68.9%) or vocational training (20.2%). They had been members

of their current organization for 6.25 years (SD = 4.56).

Sample

Authentic leadership: Spanish adaptation (Moriano, Molero & Lévy Mangin, 2011) of

the 16-item Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (Walumbwa et al., 2008).

PsyCap: Spanish adaptation (Azanza, Domínguez, Moriano & Molero, in press) of the

24-item Psychological Capital Qustionnaire (PCQ) developed by Luthans, Avolio, Youssef

and Norman (2007).

Work engagement: Spanish version (Salanova, Schaufeli, Llorens, Peiro, & Grau, 2000)

of the 17 item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003).

Leader-follower distance: 3-item scale (e.g., “How often do you meet your

supervisor?”) which assesses how often employees and leaders meet and communicate

together.

Demographic Variables: age, gender, education level, and tenure with the

organization.

Measures

Method

Means (M), Standard Deviations (SD), Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) and correlations

**p < .01, *p <.05

Note: aggregated results are in the upper diagonal and disaggregated in the lower diagonal

Construct M (SD) ICC 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. AL rated by leaders 4.43 (.51) - .04 .62** .24** .14* .11

2. Perceived AL 4.05 (1.05) .63 .02 -.00 .10 .17* .47**

3. Leader’s PsyCap 4.35 (.68) - .62** -.00 .23** .12 .22**

4. Follower’s PsyCap 3.94 (.68) .77 .16* .20** .15* .62** .38**

5. Engagement 4.18 (.85) .74 .09 .29** .08 .57** .36**

6. Leader-follower

distance 3.80 (1.32) .74 .07 .52** .14* .28** .34**

Results

Multilevel regression analysis

**p < .01, *p <.05

Leader’s PsyCap

Self-rated authentic leadership

Work engagement

Followers’ PsyCap

Follower-

rated

authentic

leadership

Leader’s gender

Communication

frequency

.38*

.15**

.15*

.44**

Results

Multilevel regression analysis

Work engagement

Followers’ PsyCap

Follower-

rated

authentic

leadership

.15**

.63**

Mediation effects

Results

**p < .01, *p <.05

Discussion

Self-others discrepancy for authentic leadership ratings.

Leader’s gender (being woman) and leader-follower distance

(frequent communication) are antecedents of authentic leadership.

Follower’s rated authentic leadership predicts follower PsyCap through

its influence on work engagement.

Limitations and future research:

• Outcome variables based on follower assessment Include objective

indicators and leader assessment.

• Longitudinal study to track the process of the way antecedents lead to

a perception of authentic leadership.

Analysis of the role of both leader’s and follower’s ratings of leader’s

authentic leadership and its effect on follower’s outcomes.

Introduction of the concepts of leader-follower distance and leader’s

gender.

Discussion

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Antecedents and consequences of authentic leadership

Business

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