Authentic Leadership and Employee Outcomes: Examining Mediating Effects

Authentic leadership is a recent research focus in management. Unlike other conventional leadership styles, authentic leadership is concerned with the fundamental aspects of the leader itself, regardless of situational and environmental differences. To date, research evidence on the outcomes of authentic leadership and in particular on the process by which it attains the postulated effects is still scarece. To better understand the effects of authentic leadership, in the present study we examine its impact on one attitude (i.e. job satisfaction) and two behavioral outcomes (i.e., helping and voice behaviors) of the followers. We focus on the mediating mechanisms of the relationships between authentic leadership and the three outcomes. Specifically we study the mediating role of employees' self-efficacy, trust in supervisor and psychological safegy at the workplace. We collect supervisor and subordinate dyad data from 50 companies in HongKong. Results provide partial support to our proposed model.