Do they [all] see my true self? Leader's relational authenticity and followers' assessments of transformational leadership

Abstract

Responding to calls for a more positive and holistic perspective on leadership, Gardner, Avolio, Luthans, May, and Walumbwa (2005), Ilies, Morgeson, and Nahrgang (2005), and Luthans and Avolio (2003) have discussed the concept of authentic leadership. However, up to this point, little is known on how leader authenticity influences leader relationships with followers. Consistent with the overall theme of this special issue, we seek to fill this gap by investigating empirically how leader authenticity predicts transformational leadership behaviours. Specifically, we focus on relational authenticity as a component of authenticity because it has been argued to be particularly salient for interpersonal relationships (Ilies et al., 2005). We further propose that leader authenticity is associated with a greater convergence of followers' perceptions of transformational leadership behaviours. Finally, we predict that not all group members will be influenced by leader authenticity to the same extent. Instead, we hypothesize and find that more critical group members are especially likely to be positively influenced by leader authenticity.

Keywords:

• Authentic leadership
• Leader-follower relationships
• Transformational leadership

Notes

¹We emphasize at this point that our article discusses the effect of leader authenticity on transformational leadership, and not the effect of authentic leadership on transformational leadership. We further note, however, that authentic individuals can be expected to be more authentic in their leadership style, which is why we discuss our study in the context of authentic leadership theory. Extant research has rarely measured authentic leadership as a social influence process between leaders and followers. Instead, most of the previous articles on this topic were either conceptual, or used the existing measure on authenticity developed by Kernis (2003). The study conducted by Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, and Peterson (2008) is a noteworthy exception, but also falls short of capturing the social influence processes of leadership occurring at different levels in groups and organizations.