Critical Summary and Review

Good performance, creativity, and innovativeness of employees is pretty much dependent on the leadership style deployed by the organization and is demonstrated by multiple empirical research and conceptualizations (Yukl 2013, p.78). Reaching success in the marketplace demands the coordinated efforts of the employees and the leaders who direct, influences and harmonizes work activities in an attempt to accomplish common goals (Müceldili, Turan and Erdil 2013, p.674). In most cases, the leadership style that drives innovation has been the subject of numerous studies. However, the mechanism for the processes connections which involves both creativity and the implementation of inventive thoughts still lacks enough details (?erne, Jakli? and Škerlavaj 2013, p.3). Several study findings have however proven an effective connection between specific leadership styles and workplace outcomes (Cassar and Buttigieg 2013, p.172). This review will be centered on the authentic leadership and the implication it has on the employees and workplace outcomes.

In the contemporary world, there is a solid chorus of pleas for authentic leadership due to the escalating levels of cynicism that the people have expressed concerning the leaders across the world who seem to fatten their own pockets at the expense of other people and the companies they serve (Ibarra 2015, p.5). Wherry (2012, p.4) believes that leadership is authentic if it is, trustworthy, sincere, ethical, and genuine in behaviors and collaborations. Today, we know everything about what our leaders do in the public eye and beyond. The widespread availability of information on public offices and the organizations, the transparency demanded of the leaders and the increased awareness of the people that they can access information on the online media is fostering a call for authentic leadership (Erkutlu and Chafra 2013, p.830-832). Rego et al. (2012, p. 429) define authentic leadership as the leadership behavior that seeks to foster positive psychological and ethical environment to promote self-awareness, moral values, transparency, and processing of balanced information on the part of both leaders and their followers.

Developing a clear understanding of these fundamental values is a vital component of authentic leadership. With time, elevating the values as new circumstances and challenges are perceived as the practices and development of authentic leadership. Laschinger, Wong, and Grau (2013, p.543) stated that as the leaders develop authentic leadership style, they need to question themselves as to what institutes their present core values as well as what influences the base for their key decisions and actions. The values and beliefs must include a more general principle rather than one’s personal desires and must incorporate principles of how the leaders influence their followers by raising themselves and others to greater standards of ethical behavior (Trevia?no & Nelson 2014, p.16 and Day et al. 2014, p.69). To add onto that, it is crucial to note that authentic leadership is not an object or entity that exists or fails to exist instead, this leadership style occurs over time.

Algera and Lips-Wiersma (2012, p. 118) in the article ‘Radical Authentic Leadership,’ they sought to develop circumstances in which managers, leaders, and employees within an organization can be authentic. They argued that the way in which authentic leadership is currently being theorized, it may be difficult to accomplish its set objectives. The article addresses the inconsistencies and shortfalls in the existing theories to deliver an extended focus of the study. Four authenticity themes were identified including authenticity demands developing own meaning, authenticity is not intrinsically ethical, authenticity fails to imply value congruence, and authenticity is avoidable (Algera and Lips-Wiersma (2012, p. 122).Although authentic leadership previously acknowledged as authenticity to imply a complex concept, its effects have been glossed over and are yet to be followed from time to time. Proceeding along these lines would lead to authentic leadership as a management technique thereby undermining authentic leadership’s shared vision of increasing positive work and ethical behavior. Algera and Lips-Wiersma (2012, p. 129) studied the assertions of authentic leadership through an existential model of authenticity. The four themes identified emphasized on the significance of a person’s freedom and responsibility in being authentic as well as the connection and the responsibility of the collectiveness within a firm (Algera and Lips-Wiersma (2012, p. 129). The implications of the themes were carefully pursued. The expansion of theories of authentic leadership help put forward a more radical form of the leadership style where the emphasis is placed on the leaders to understanding the environment in which people within an organization act authentically. The authors offered that for authentic leadership to be theorized it must ask the question as to how people and the collective can stay current to the structural pressures of time, power, and purpose that will modify authenticity within organizations (Algera and Lips-Wiersma (2012, p. 128). It was concluded that this would result in a pretty much complicated and time-consuming study yet claimed that the objective of authentic leadership is crucial to warrant the commitment that the study demands and that it has the potential to break through the existing impasses in the creation of leadership theory.

Authentic Leadership

Wang and Hsieh (2013, p. 613) sought to explore the implications of authentic leadership on team members trust and involvement. Employee trust is a vital tool to foster cooperative relationships within an organization. Trust in leaders has been found to be one of the critical elements of employee engagement. Employee engagement is where an employee becomes involved, receives satisfaction, and enthusiasm for work. Data was collected from about 390 employees in 1,000 manufacturing companies in Taiwan (Wang and Hsieh 2013, p.617). In the study, hierarchical multiple regression methods were deployed to test the hypothesis (Wang and Hsieh 2013, p.618). The research findings ascertained that through employee trust, authentic leaders exercise close contacts with their followers, improve job and employee engagement contributing to a sustainable organization. The results established that the managers’ consistency between the words, behaviors, and moral awareness are strongly related to members’ engagement (Wang and Hsieh 2013, p.617). At the same time, consistency between the managers’ words and behaviors are strongly related to members trust. In addition, it was revealed a positive connection between employee trust and engagement. There was a restricted mediating impact between employee trust, authentic leadership, and employee engagement. This research had its own drawbacks due to the fact that it used self-reported data from similar sources which could provide artificially inflated results which raised concerns of the common method variance (Wang and Hsieh 2013, p.622). To reduce this risk, several procedural remedies were applied which comprised protecting the respondents anonymity, counterbalancing question order, and psychological separation of measurement (Wang and Hsieh 2013, p.622). The core weakness of this study is that the researchers could not utilize the multilevel modeling on the variables thereby failing to shed light on and discover a more accurate implication of authentic leadership on employees’ behavior and attitude. All in all, the major strength of the article findings offered practical effects for the managers and the organization. Organizations must recognize the need for authentic leadership. The research demanded that leaders must hold specific conducts such as consistency and integrity in behaviors, distribution, and delegation of roles, effective communication and showing apprehension (Wang and Hsieh 2013, p.621).

In yet another study, ?erne et al. (2014, p.1) examined the impact of authentic leadership on how it enhances employee job satisfaction. Studies were conducted to analyze how the two concepts may relate and appear at the various levels of agreement between the supervisor and employee perceptions stimulate the outcome. This will help to deliver a more thorough evaluation of the connection between authentic leadership and job satisfaction. The researchers collected data from 24 supervisors and 170 direct reports, i.e., team members (?erne et al. 2014, p.19). They empirically tested the interactions between the leaders and followers perceptions on job satisfaction. Hierarchical linear modeling was applied in the study to test various aspects of the multi-level model including cross-level impact of leader self-awareness and team members ‘awareness of the leadership style on job satisfaction, the implications of interaction between leader self-awareness and team members’ awareness in forecasting job satisfaction, and the existence of multi-level structure (?erne et.al 2014, p.20). Leaders’ self-awareness and team members’ awareness were analyzed using the authentic leadership inventory model (?erne et al. 2014, p.17). Job satisfaction was measured using four parameters, and the data was self-reported by the employees (?erne et al. 2014, p.18). Social identity for the respondents was effectively controlled so as not to impact the connection between authentic leadership and the outcome (?erne et al. 2014, p.18). The results established a link between employee perceptions of leadership on being content at the workplace. Also, the interactions between the leaders’ self-awareness and members’ awareness of an authentic leader in forecasting job satisfaction were established thereby incorporating the supervisor and team members’ awareness of authentic leadership (?erne et al. 2014, p.29). The methodological limitation of the research is that it used a small sample size of 24 supervisors for testing and interpreting cross-level relationships (?erne et al. 2014, p.31). Where a larger sample size was used, it would be efficient to depict patterns between supervisors and the employees over time. The key strength was evidenced by deploying meta-analytical approach to positively foster employee performance. The researchers stressed the fact that team leaders should put more emphasis on the development of authentic interactions with their subordinates. In this way, team members’ will become more contented with their job roles.

Fundamental Values of Authentic Leadership

Very few studies have investigated the impact of authentic leadership on overall work performance. Leroy, Palanski, and Simons (2012, p.1) examined how authentic leadership and integrity interact to influence worker performance. The researchers studied both authentic leadership and leadership behavioral integrity in greater details. The aim is to validate that authentic leadership and behavioral integrity have been hypothesized to create a key ingredient of leadership positive forms (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.2). The positive image on employee conduct in the workplace recognizes the strengths that stimulate satisfactory performance in the contemporary competitive and dynamic work environment. Leroy, Palanski, and Simons (2012, p.3) developed three hypotheses to further elaborate on their thoughts. From the premises, they were able to argue that authentic leadership and leader integrity are founded on the same hypothetical tools which drive the performance of the employees. Thus, authentic leadership and leader integrity stimulate employee involvement within an organization thereby driving effective organizational commitment (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.4). Job performance is the behaviors that an employee exhibits that contribute to the accomplishment of organizational goals. Authentic leaders influence their team members to consistently strive to improve their work and overall performance outcome via facilitating involvement and assurance to work. The researchers wanted to examine and verify the ideology that an authentic leader is the main originator to self-perception thereby affecting follower organizational work commitment and performance. Data was obtained from 25 companies in Belgium to test the hypothesis (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.6). A total of 49 leaders and 345 team members were used in the study (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.6). The study was administered in two phases. In stage 1, 75% of the respondents completed the survey whereas, in stage 2, the supervisors were required to provide ratings for their subordinates’ performance (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.6). The data were analyzed using structural equation model which was conducted in two stages (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.8). The outcomes showed that there was a connection between authentic leaders behavior and follower organizational commitment. Similarly, the leadership style and behavioral integrity influence job performance entirely facilitated through follower commitment. The primary limitation of the study demonstrated that since large amounts of the data were cross-sectional, the researchers were unable to derive robust causal inferences concerning the direction of the relationships (Leroy, Palanski, and Simons 2012, p.12). Surveys that make use of longitudinal research methods are used to figure out the direction of the connections among the variables under study. The key strength in this research proves that its findings can be expanded in several ways in terms of future studies. In this case, future studies may want to explore on other backgrounds to leaders integrity with one particular variable being leaders’ political skills.

In this final article, Emuwa (2013, p.45) sought to investigate the authentic leadership interactions with subordinates effects of commitment to that of the supervisor and empowerment. The empowerment concept has been theorized as an improved inherent motivation which displays itself in four intuitions namely: competence, impact, meaning, and self-determination. The hypothetical concept on authentic leadership defines the leaders as having team members who feel more mentally endowed to assume superior roles for their work. The independent variables i.e. authentic leadership and dependent variables, i.e., empowerment and commitment as well as moderating variable, i.e., procedural justice were derived in the study (Emuwa 2013, p.52). The controlled variables included followers’ gender, age, and tenure (Emuwa 2013, p.52). Questionnaires and stratified random sampling were employed in the study. A sample of 20 respondents for each independent variable was preferred, and the survey yielded a response rate of 85% (Emuwa 2013, p.52).The results established while using independent variables showed a strong link between authentic leadership and commitment to supervisor whereas tenure exhibited a negative relationship with authentic leadership. Procedural justice with demonstrated a positive connection with empowerment and assurance to a supervisor and authentic leadership. Also, the results established a positive connection between commitment to manager and empowerment and authentic leadership actions (Emuwa 2013, p.54). Similarly, hypotheses 1 and 2 derived established that authentic leadership impacts employees’ outcome (Emuwa 2013, p.57). The projected outcome of correlation between authentic leadership, empowerment, and commitment to supervisor proves that balance processing and interpersonal transparency are leaders’ actions that influence subordinate development. The study’s key limitation was the fact that it utilized convenient sampling which raises concerns about its generalizability (Emuwa 2013, p.58). It tends to compromise representativeness of the sample population.

Critique of Existing Theories of Authentic Leadership

An implementation of the activities clarifies and describes what each activity should deliver and within a specific timeframe. Usually, in a project phase, each stage is divided into dependent activities to accomplish a specific objective (McLeod, Doolin and MacDonell 2012, p.1). During the implementation process, it is recommended that each activity must be well outlined to attain its deliverable within the specified time frame (English and Kitsantas 2013, p.129). An implementation of the activities carried out during the three weeks is discussed below.

I commenced the week by trying to understand what leadership is. While basing preference on authentic leadership style, I read Part one and two of the book ‘Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development’ by R.N. Lussier, and C.F. Achua’ to gain a clear understanding and discover my authentic leadership skills. This book allowed me to think about the basis for my leadership roles and the processes required to become an authentic leader. I did self-assessments and completed questionnaires on leadership which helped to gauge several factors like how self-expressed I am as a leader, my influence on my peers, and the degree of impact. I also examined my former years and circumstances of leadership during this period. Examining my life story and the various opportunities in leadership allows me to identify what activities created a big impact on myself and the situations in which I was discontented with my leadership style or received feedback from my peers. While collaboration with my colleagues to evaluate my emotional intelligence, I was able to reflect on managing personal actions and relationships. At the end of the week, I would sit down and reflect on activities conducted during the week to help enhance my self-awareness and internalize moral perspectives.

In week 2, I primarily focused on my career goals, personal analysis and those of others. I was able to explore my strengths and fatal weaknesses. Developing a career vision and objective is key for those that strive to be successful in their professions. Having a clear understanding of the major strengths helps to increase potential. At the same time, it was also crucial to identify any restrictions to help minimize them from interfering with leadership roles. At some point in our lives, we encounter difficult situations. Such instances are usually very painful, but instead, they occur to provide unique opportunities for individual development. Emotional intelligence is founded on self and social awareness, self-management, and worker engagement (Serrat 2017, p.1). These variables demand constant development; thus emotional awareness can be used to identify and manage the emotions of others and foster constructive relationships. Taking the time to record decisions and provide a rationale for then instigates personal analysis. From the decision outcomes, I can develop a personal feedback that shows what event went as planned, what event went wrong and what needs to be done, and what events may be successful. Also, engaging a colleague as an observational partner may be relevant to offer advice with positive directions. Therefore, when, leaders seek another person’s input, it is important for them to listen to feedback without striking back against the invited colleague.

Research on Authentic Leadership and Employee-Outcomes

This week commenced by focusing on improving my self-awareness. It is believed that authentic leadership can be nurtured. For one to be an authentic leader, one has to acquire self-improvement, reflection, and self-discovery (Miniotait? and Bu?i?nien? 2015, p.68). I had an excellent opportunity to list, analyze and think through beliefs, leadership doctrines, and moral boundaries that fosters development towards becoming an authentic leader. The primary objective of this exercise is to allow openness about the beliefs that are fundamental to me, the philosophies I will employ when leading, and the moral standards that will guide my actions even when under immense pressure (Baron and Parent 2015, p.42).  On the third day of the week, I was able to dig deeper to gain a wider insight about myself. It is essential for leaders to ask themselves the questions: Who am I? What is my goal? What motivates me? etc. Studying through these questions requires commitment, time, and response from others. This reflective exercise shows the internal processes of leadership development that other lack. Also, I had the opportunity to take some downtime by doing yoga from my busy schedule which greatly helped to clear my mind and offer a balanced outlook. The reflective downtime also allowed to improve my self-awareness and to grow authenticity. Take the much-needed breaks at specific intervals to celebrate important achievements can be both energizing and motivating to yourself and team members. On the last day, I reflected on the activities carried out during the week and the prior two weeks. I was able to examine the techniques to enhance my effectiveness as a leader. I reflected on the questions the ways in which my leadership style will be consistent with my values and principles, the importance of having a flexible leadership style and will the flexibility allow me to be authentic.

At the end of the day, a timeline of activities helps to record individual thoughts that result to a wider degree of self-perception as well as foster writing and emotional confidence. It allows identifying good and undesirable behaviors that may be repeated or amended for self-improvement. In addition, it is relevant to compose life story to shed light on how far you have come, what you have learned from the experience and provide a sense of direction for the future.

The activities conducted helped in fostering interdependence. Tasks that are accomplished independently may not stimulate the kind of contact and interdependence needed for effective teamwork (Robbins & Judge 2014, p.28). Individual achievement is in part, a role of joint success and that every member is reliant on and is responsible to other team members (White 2016, p.321). The initial phase of becoming an authentic leader entails one to reflect inside personal self-knowledge, self-concept, and self-regulation as behaviors are molded from these aspects. To nurture this, it requires engaging in personal responsibility, devotion, hard work and reflective actions. In this project, interdependence was exercised through interactions with work colleagues to motivate and build positive work relationships. Opportunities to evaluate what I have accomplished within each week and to collaborate with my colleagues were important to reflect on the potential strategies to improve my team members as well as my self-development, career, and authentic leadership skills. In conclusion, authentic leadership style is very personal, just like many good things are. This approach to leadership requires contemplation as well as positive efforts to grow and learn the different ways to become an authentic leader. It is a lifelong process that needs to be developed and nurtured to influence decisions of what if good and right as an individual and to the society.  

Implications of Authentic Leadership on Job Satisfaction

References

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