Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure

Summary

This article defines authentic leadership to include four dimensions – self awareness, relational transparency, internal moral perspective, and balanced processing. They develop a scale to measure authentic leadership and show its correlation with better employees’ performance.

Abstract

This study developed and tested a theory-based measure of authentic leadership using five separate samples obtained from China, Kenya, and the United States. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a higher order, multidimensional model of the authentic leadership construct (the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire [ALQ]) comprising leader self-awareness, relational transparency, internalized moral perspective, and balanced processing. Structural equation modeling (SEM) demonstrated the predictive validity for the ALQ measure for important work-related attitudes and behaviors, beyond what ethical and transformational leadership offered. Finally, results revealed a positive relationship between authentic leadership and supervisor-rated performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed.