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The research on authentic leadership has recently become a priority in leadership literature. As policy-makers and practitioners seek evidence in addressing leadership malfeasance across organisations and the broader society. Hence, a growing body of evidence suggests that the authentic leadership construct is plagued with a lack of conceptual clarity, embodying philosophical ambiguity and demographic limitations. Consequently, the study provides crucial descriptions of authentic leadership within a developing economy context.

The study’s findings show that three perspectives were evident from the authentic leaders and followers in defining authentic leadership. Authentic leaders perceive the construct from dual perspectives while followers have a singular outlook. The first perspective provided by the authentic leaders focussed on their leadership and how the burden of the role influenced their approach. The second perspective linked authentic leadership to areas that improve organisational outcomes. An unconscious awareness of the necessities that support organisational performance underpins the descriptions by the leaders. Remarkably, followers provide the last perspective that emphasises the relational aspects of the authentic leader and how it influences them in their daily lives. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the study’s contributions and limitations before charting the path for future research.

This chapter critically reviews the literature on authentic leadership (AL) that emerged in response to scandals in private- and public-sector organisations, drawing on theories, concepts and methods from other disciplines. The author finds that AL lacks a consensus definition, and that quantitative research has largely been at the level of employees rather than executives or board members. The review reveals 12 categories of criticisms. Schaefler advocates inductive qualitative research on the major concerns of executive leaders and means of addressing them via group dynamics, maintaining that exploring processes of AL in real-world settings would complement existing quantitative research and contribute to the development and extension of AL theory.

In this paper, we first develop the concepts of authentic leaders, authentic leadership, and authentic leader development. We suggest a definition of authentic leaders, which is based on the leader’s self-concept: his or her self-knowledge, self-concept clarity, self-concordance, and person-role merger, and on the extent to which the leader’s self-concept is expressed in his or her behavior. Following, we offer a life-story approach to the development of authentic leaders. We argue that authentic leadership rests heavily on the self-relevant meanings the leader attaches to his or her life experiences, and these meanings are captured in the leader’s life-story. We suggest that self-knowledge, self-concept clarity, and person-role merger are derived from the life-story. Therefore, the construction of a life-story is a major element in the development of authentic leaders. We further argue that the life-story provides followers with a major source of information on which to base their judgments about the leader’s authenticity. We conclude by drawing some practical implications from this approach and presenting suggestions for further research.

Academic and practitioner attention to the constructs of authentic leadership and work engagement and their implications for organizations has grown dramatically over the past decade. Consideration of the implications of these constructs for high-performance human resource practices (HPHRP) is limited, however. In this monograph, we present a conceptual model that integrates authentic leadership/followership theory with theory and research on HPHRP. Then, we apply this model to systematically consider the implications of skill-enhancing, motivation-enhancing, and opportunity-enhancing HR practices in combination with authentic leadership for authentic followership, follower work engagement, and follower performance. We contend that authentic leadership, through various influences processes, promotes HPHRP, and vice versa, to help foster enhanced work engagement. By cultivating greater work engagement, individuals are motivated to bring their best, most authentic selves to the workplace and are more likely to achieve higher levels of both well-being and performance.

This chapter offers a comprehensive review the literature on authentic leadership (AL). The authors employ a bibliometric approach to identify, classify, visualise and synthesise relevant scholarly publications and the work of a core group of interdisciplinary scholars who are key contributors to the research on AL. They review 264 journal articles, adopting a clustering technique to assess the central themes of AL scholarship. They identify five distinct thematic clusters: authenticity in the context of leadership; structure of AL; social perspectives on AL; dynamism of AL; and value perceptions of AL. Velt and Sinkovics assert that these clusters will help scholars of AL to understand the dominant streams in the literature and provide a foundation for future research.

The benefits of authentic leadership for followers have been thoroughly researched, but the effects on leaders’ well-being remain unclear. To address this research gap, the authors hypothesized reciprocal relationships between authentic leadership and work engagement as well as emotional exhaustion.

The hypotheses were tested in a German sample with leaders from different work sectors using a cross-lagged panel design with a time lag of 14 months (N = 137 at T1; N = 217 at T2).

Well-being significantly predicted leaders’ engagement in authentic leadership at the second measurement point, whereas the reciprocal relationships were not significant.

Drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory, possible processes underlying the observed impact of leaders’ well-being on their leadership behavior are discussed. The present research provides evidence that well-being constitutes a crucial basic resource for leaders to engage in constructive leadership behaviors such as authentic leadership.

This study contributes to the literature by uncovering the causal order linking authentic leadership and leaders’ health.

The purpose of the present research is to explore the relationships between corporate social responsibility (CSR), authentic leadership and business model flexibility during times of unprecedented crises.

The research approach in this study is conceptual. After a brief review of the literature associated with CSR, authentic leadership and business models, the authors introduce a model describing the interaction of authentic leadership and business model flexibility on CSR heterogeneity.

This research explains how firms that are led by authentic leaders and that have flexible business models will be more engaged with their stakeholders than firms with less authentic leaders or more rigid business models during unprecedented crises.

Prescriptions for practitioners are suggested for improving authentic leadership as well as making adaptations to the firm's business model. Regarding authentic leadership, firms can screen potential new hires and existing employees for authentic leadership qualities. Firms can also rely upon existing interventions shown to assist in authentic leadership development for current leaders. At the business model level, firms can focus on core resources and their application in related product and service markets.

Firms engaged in CSR activities benefit more from those activities when leaders are authentic. However, in times of unprecedented crises, business model flexibility may also dictate the extent to which firms can satisfy their stakeholders. The authors introduce a conceptual model that takes the elements of authentic leadership and business model flexibility into account to explain CSR heterogeneity.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between authentic leadership and the ethic of care (EoC) and to propose that leadership is characterized by the commitment of others that is represented by EoC’s moral perspective.

This paper is a conceptual paper that compares authentic leadership characteristics with the moral and ethical elements of EoC.

This paper proposes that authentic leadership is closely tied to the commitment of others which characterizes the leader’s moral responsibility and shows how EoC fits with 11 other ethical perspectives in enabling leaders to serve others

The contribution of this paper lies on its focus on the importance of EoC as a guiding moral perspective in the actions of authentic leaders. Although authentic leadership has been written about extensively, very little has been written to link authentic leadership with the EoC.

The leadership of entrepreneurs/business founders, as perceived by their employees, has received limited research attention. Using the Authentic Leadership Model as a guiding framework, this study seeks to provide an exploratory examination of the linkage between employees' perception of the business founder as an authentic leader and the employees' attitudes and happiness.

Participants are employees (n=179) of 62 newer, smaller businesses. Each business represented in the study had been founded by a single owner still active in the daily operations of the company. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the two levels of data (individual and business level) gathered in the study.

As hypothesized, the employees' perception of authentic leadership serves as the strongest single predictor of employee job satisfaction (t=6.453, p=0.000), organizational commitment (t=6.665, p=0.000), and work happiness (t=5.488, p=0.000).

A convenience sampling method limits the generalizability of results. Experimental and longitudinal future research is needed to assess issues of causality as well as the strength and duration of relationships noted. Future research should focus on how the authentic leadership of the founder/entrepreneur impacts not only employee attitudes, but also the performance and long‐term viability of the emerging organization.

This exploratory study offers the first application of the Authentic Leadership Model within the context of entrepreneurial ventures, and provides new insights into the relationship between entrepreneur/leader behavior and employee attitudes. Findings indicate that if employees in newer, small organizations view their founder/entrepreneur as an authentic leader, it can have a positive impact on their work‐related attitudes and happiness.

Recognising the value of positive organisational behaviour at the workplace, this paper aims to provide a major review of the current state of research on positivity, and subsequently proposes new pathways for more theory building relating to important constructs conceptually related to positivity. Following the integration of emerging but disparate research on workplace positivity and related concepts, the paper develops a conceptual framework depicting the relationships amongst authentic leader behaviours, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, thriving and job performance.

The paper offers a systematic critical review of published studies representing the literature addressing authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, thriving, psychological capital and job performance. The paper relied on computerised keyword searches in the main business source databases of Emerald, ProQuest, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost and SpringerLink.

This paper leads to a conceptual framework proposing direct relationships between authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and job performance. Further, authentic leadership is proposed to potentially nurture organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance, given the theoretical linkages between these conceptually relevant variables related to positivity. Additionally, organisational virtuousness and psychological capital are projected to mediate the relationship between authentic leadership and employee thriving. Finally, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital and employee thriving are designated as mediators of the relationship between authentic leadership and job performance.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework focusing on one form of positive leader behaviour and also assumes specific causal pathways using a positivistic research approach to understanding the leadership–performance relationship. The paper did not examine all possible antecedents of positivity at the workplace.

The proposed conceptual framework should form the basis of many organisational interventions, especially in relation to boosting authentic leadership, organisational virtuousness, psychological capital, employee thriving and job performance. By suggesting the association between authentic leadership, psychological capital and organisational virtuousness, this paper highlights potential benefits from effective leaders’ commitment to enhancing psychological capital and organisational virtuousness and engendering thriving behaviour and job performance.

This novel paper has the potential to stimulate the empirical studies on workplace positivity through the association of authentic leadership, psychological capital, organisational virtuousness and thriving.