DON’T fake it 'til you make it: An experience sampling study on authenticity and leaders’ well-being

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Contributors

Abstract

Research on authentic leadership has proliferated throughout the past decade and has surfaced many important insights about this leadership style's effects on subordinates. What has gone largely unnoticed so far, however, are the consequences authentic leadership entails for those enacting in it, that is, the leaders themselves. This is critical as leaders are demanded by their organizations to provide guidance and meaning, and their well-being is a precondition for fulfilling this important task. Drawing on theory on regulatory depletion and emotional labor, we investigate the role of authentic leadership in predicting leaders' well-being, and regulatory depletion mechanisms mediating those authenticity effects. We apply hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze 405 observations from 45 executive managers in an experience sampling study. Our multilevel moderated mediation analyses reveal authentic leadership to reduce leaders' stress and to increase their work engagement, and these associations to be mediated by leaders' depletion. Moreover, we show the indirect effects to be contingent upon the extent to which leaders interact with their followers. Specifically, we find authentic leaders to be less depleted with increasing follower interactions, whereas less authentic leaders to be less depleted by decreasing follower interactions. Thus, our study entails valuable implications, which are discussed.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 76th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AoM)
Place of PublicationAnaheim, CA, USA
PublisherAcademy of Management
Volume2016
Edition1
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesAcademy of Management Proceedings
ISSN0065-0668

Keywords

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