Managers' and Subordinates' Perceptions of Authentic Leadership, Subordinate Outcomes, & Mediating Mechanisms

• Main Author: Rog, Evelina
• Other Authors: Son Hing, Leanne
• Language: en
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: authentic leadership; trust; empowerment; values; leader follower outcomes; organizational commitment; psychological well-being; leader-member exchange; organizational citizenship behavior; job performance; ethical decision making
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10214/2923

How does authentic leadership influence subordinate outcomes? It depends on whom you ask. Using Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, and Peterson’s (2008) theory-based measure of authentic leadership, this dissertation research advances the authentic leadership literature by: 1) examining relations between managers’ self-reported and subordinates’ ratings of authentic leadership and subordinate outcomes; 2) testing the theoretical proposition that more authentic leaders are inherently more ethical both in the values they subscribe to and in their behavior when compared to less authentic leaders; and 3) examining the mediating mechanisms that account for relations between authentic leadership and subordinate outcomes. Using a field sample of 188 managers and 75 subordinates, results revealed that subordinates and their managers do not see eye to eye in their perceptions of managers’ authentic leadership as the correlation between their ratings was only marginally significant. General support was found for the notion that more authentic leaders subscribe more to self-transcendent values and less to self-enhancement values when compared to less authentic leaders; they also engage in more ethical decision making. Furthermore, results showed that authentic leadership is associated with a broad range of subordinate outcomes, including leader-member exchange, affective organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and job performance. However, these relations were found only within source. Mediation analyses revealed that subordinates’ trust in their manager partially mediated the relation between subordinate-rated authentic leadership and subordinates’ perceptions of the quality of their relationship with their manager (LMX). Mediation analyses also revealed that subordinates’ trust in their manager and their sense of psychological empowerment each mediated relations between subordinate-rated authentic leadership and subordinates’ affective organizational commitment. In addition, managers’ self-reported empowering leader behavior mediated the relation between managers’ self-rated authentic leadership and their ratings of their subordinates’ organizational citizenship behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed.