Authentic leadership – for better and for worse? Leader well-being and inconsistency as moderating factors in the relation between daily authentic leadership and follower well-being
通过5天日记研究64位领导者和162位追随者，发现领导者真实型领导行为的一致性低时，日常真实型领导与追随者日常工作投入正相关，但与情绪困扰无关；领导者特质幸福感未削弱该关系。
Despite comprehensive insights on favourable outcomes of authentic leadership for followers, there is a limited understanding about boundary conditions of authentic leadership. Leaders’ decreased well-being (i.e. high trait emotional irritation and low trait work engagement) or inconsistency in authentic leadership may attenuate the relation between authentic leadership and follower well-being (i.e. emotional irritation and work engagement). We tested these assumptions using a daily diary study design over five consecutive working days with a sample of 64 leaders and 162 followers. We found partial support for the cross-level moderation of authentic leadership inconsistency across these five days, as daily authentic leadership was related to daily work engagement (but not emotional irritation) of followers, when authentic leadership inconsistency was low. Contrary to our predictions, neither high leader trait emotional irritation nor low leader trait work engagement attenuated the relation between daily authentic leadership and daily follower well-being. The results point out to the importance of consistency in authentic leadership behaviour. However, leaders do not need to be overly concerned about negative consequences for followers when they lead authentically while having a reduced trait well-being.