Abstract
The authentic leadership literature suggests that there are three critical elements that precede the bestowal of authentic leadership: first, the espoused values and actions of authentic leaders must be congruent; second, the expectation of the leaders and the followers must be congruent; and, third, the leaders must behave with high moral integrity for the good of their subordinates, the organization and the community. These features of authentic leadership involve subjective interpretation, and therefore evaluations of it may vary in different settings. This study used the Q method to compare leaders’ and followers’ constructs of authentic leadership in Ghana and New Zealand. Thirty leaders and followers in each of the organizations studied in Ghana and New Zealand sorted selected statements about authentic leadership. Three factors or types of authentic leadership were identified and named for each of the four settings. While these results suggest that authentic leadership is idiosyncratic, further analysis showed that some attributes of authentic leadership were common to the organizations, and some were common to the countries. These findings confirmed that in order to encourage and support authentic leadership, it is necessary to consider an ‘employee-centric’ approach in which followers’ viewpoints are given full recognition. Further, effective leadership training programmes needed to be tailored to specific organizations in specific contexts to achieve desirable outcomes for organizations.
Introduction
The revelations of leadership and management scandals and leadership failures in various organizations at national and international levels (recent examples include: WorldCom, Enron, General Motors and Lehman Brothers) and the accompanying societal challenges facing public and private organizations have drawn both practising leaders (practitioners) and researchers’ attention to the ethical challenges in leadership. These behavioural meltdowns at top leadership levels and the calls for the injection of values into the behaviour of managers and leaders (Starratt, 1993, 1994; Duignan and Bhindi, 1997) are some of the most important factors driving research into the known leadership theories while at the same time looking for the kind of leadership model that could best suit the challenges faced by the world at this time. This questioning and search by practitioners and researchers led to the development of the authentic leadership (AL) model (Duignan and Bhindi, 1997; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio and Gardner, 2005).
AL has been suggested by researchers and practitioners to be the kind of leadership relevant for positive and desirable organizational outcomes in a turbulent and challenging time, as in our world today (Avolio and Gardner, 2005). Authentic leaders are said to be true to themselves and are transparent in all situations regardless of the cost to themselves as individuals, and they have the welfare of followers and the organization at heart (Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Kernis, 2003; Avolio et al., 2004; Gardner et al., 2005).
A key element of AL is the claim that authenticity is an attribute bestowed on leaders by followers when there is congruence between leaders’ espoused values and their actions during leader–follower interactions (Luthans and Avolio, 2003). Thus, leaders and followers come into an organizational setting with values, perceptions and expectations that guide the social interactions that ensue between them. During these interactions, leaders are assessed in terms of followers’ own rating systems, perceptions and expectations. Followers compare leaders’ stated values with their exhibited behaviours, match the leaders’ behaviours with their own expectations, and finally assess whether leader actions produce benefits for the organization and the followers themselves. In this interactional process of assessing if AL is present, followers bestow the honorary title of ‘authentic’ on the leader when there is a congruence between the leaders’ espoused values and behaviours, when leaders’ expectations match their followers’ expectations, and when the leaders’ morality and integrity visibly produces desired benefits to the follower and the organization.
The underlying assumption here is that followers’ understanding of the meaning of the AL construct is important. For leaders to achieve authentic leadership status depends on them having met certain follower expectations of what is authentic. This makes the AL construct subjective, because to evaluate it requires understanding from the followers’ points of view (Owusu-Bempah et al., 2011). However, the current AL literature, while recognizing the need for more attention to be given to followers, does not yet sufficiently address the issue of follower subjectivity in the AL construct.
The basis of this study is the identification of some concerns in the AL literature regarding the exact make-up of the authentic leadership construct and several calls made by researchers for more empirical analysis to address such concerns (Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Avolio et al., 2004; Fields, 2007; Walumbwa et al., 2008; Vogelgesang et al., 2009).
One issue of concern is that the current AL theory, which is mainly based on research done in the Western world, suggests that all the desirable authentic leader attributes revealed by such research are universally applicable. But studies have proven that no two cultures are the same (Hofstede, 1980; Dorfman et al., 1997; Peterson and Hunt, 1997; Den-Hartog et al., 1999; Hofstede, 2001; House, 2004) and it is likely that follower expectations and perceptions are heavily dependent on their underlying cultures. The implication here is that cultural context will influence the prioritization of preferred authentic leader attributes. Therefore, a question exists as to whether leaders and followers in different contexts see authentic leadership differently or not.
To address the concerns raised above, and to make the AL construct meaningful in its applicability in different contexts requires investigating follower subjectivity regarding the meanings given to the AL construct in different cultural settings and to compare these meanings (Owusu-Bempah et al., 2011). Such comparison can identify those AL attributes that might be commonly preferred and those that are context specific. This study moved towards building an interactive model which incorporates follower subjectivity in the AL construct.
The interactive model presented in Figure 1 is based on the synthesis of AL theories and the implicit leadership based theories. The interactive model pulls together the various theoretical perspectives that explain how authenticity in leaders is bestowed and provides more comprehensive theoretical explanations about the role follower subjectivity plays in bestowing the honorary title ‘authentic’ on leaders.
Interactional model of AL identifying three key elements assessed by followers before they bestow AL on leaders.
Example of a completely filled out Q sort.
The interactive model suggests that leaders and followers come into an organizational setting with an already built understanding and interpretation of the leader–follower processes. During the social exchanges that take place between leaders and followers, followers assess three key things. First, they assess leaders’ espoused values in terms of their exhibited behaviours, second, they match their expectations with those of the leaders, and third, they assess the benefits that the leaders’ exhibited behaviour produces for them (followers) and the organization. If each of these assessments is a positive, that is, if all the three conditions are met, then leaders are rewarded with the title of authentic by followers. If all three conditions are, however, not met then authenticity will not be bestowed. If only two conditions are met, such leaders will be classified as partially authentic (Owusu-Bempah et al., 2011).
Thus, the model grounds the assessment of AL solely on followers’ subjective beliefs and interpretation. Two important implications can be derived from this, first, the model implies contingency, that is, because follower values and expectations differ, their interpretations and assessments of AL may differ even in the same given example of AL. Second, since leader–follower interactions occur in given cultural contexts and culture influences perception, it is likely that the cultural context influences follower assessments. Finally, it is possible that some attributes of AL are universal while others are context specific. Following from the above, several implications can be drawn for AL (Owusu-Bempah et al., 2011).
First, the AL literature holds that authenticity is not a trait that an individual possesses. Second, observing leaders alone would not produce enough justification to conclude whether they are authentic or not. Authenticity only becomes evident after some period of interaction, observation and assessment by a second party. This leads directly to the third point, that authenticity cannot be claimed by any individual but is bestowed or conferred by others based on their understanding of what constitutes authenticity. This highlights the importance of follower’s subjective understanding if AL is to be achieved. These considerations therefore lead directly to the following research questions:
How and to what extent are the constructs of authentic leadership in one culture, for example, Ghana, the same as or different from that of another, for example, New Zealand?
Are some attributes of AL common across organizations while others context specific? And what is the significance of this?
To be able to answer such research questions, it is necessary to identify and compare the subjective meanings of AL from the points of view of individuals in different cultural and organizational contexts. Human subjectivity cannot easily be measured using quantitative research approaches and demands in-depth interviews where follow-up and engaging questions can be asked to clarify concepts as they emerge, therefore making it purely qualitative in nature. It must also be noted that such information when gathered must be reported from the subjects’ own perspective without imposing any external ideas to the meanings given by subjects.
One rigorous method that has been identified as being very robust in studying human subjectivity is the Q method (Brown, 1980).
Methodology
The Q method is a measurement technique introduced by Stephenson (1953) as a way of measuring subjectivity. The Q method rigorously examines self-referent views without compromising or confusing it with any external frame of reference. Brown (1996) explained that the Q method measures life as lived from the standpoint of the person living it. Therefore, using Q method, according to Previte et al., (2007), will bring to light people’s own perspectives, meanings and opinions on the subject under study.
The Q method consists of five key steps: collecting relevant ideas, beliefs and opinions concerning the research object (concourse); selecting and formulation of a set of meaningful statements (Q sample); selecting respondents and giving them the statements to sort out in their own way; and analysis and interpretation of data (Brown, 1980).
Several letters were sent out to both businesses and governmental institutions for permission to use their organizations for the study in New Zealand, however, only two institutions, that is, a university and non-governmental organization (NGO) granted access. Similar organizations were then selected in Ghana for comparative purposes. Therefore, the concourse in this study was constructed through interviewing 70 diverse people from the universities and two NGOs in New Zealand and Ghana. Respondents were asked to ‘describe a good leader they know or have known and tell us why he/she considers such a person/people good leader(s)’. As the individuals shared their views on the above question, they were asked to clarify some of the issues they raised, for example, truthful, kind, generous, the issues that emerged differ from one individual to another and so are the follow-up questions. In the selected organizations, individuals that were willing to provide answers for the concourse building were used. After they are satisfied and believed to have exhausted answering the questions posed, they nominated another person. This snowballing process went on in all the selected organizations until such a time that the responses being given by later respondents were similar to those previously given by earlier respondents indicating that no new insights were being found. At this point the initial interviews stopped.
All responses received from the initial interviews were collated and condensed into 60 distinct opinion statements. These statements were then mapped onto Kernis’ (2003) model of authentic leadership. The mapping was done by comparing and, matching, the meaning of the statements selected from the concourse with the characteristics of each of the four attributes of AL in the Kernis’ model. Four dimensions each under leader and follower meant that eight domains were needed. The use of five rows and two columns gave a matrix of 10 cells (Table 1). A minimum of five statements was chosen from each column. However, more statements were chosen from the ‘other’ column as those ideas expressed by the subjects were not included in the published research on authentic leadership. A total of 33 statements finally formed the Q sets for New Zealand. For Ghana, two additional statements stood out as unique to Ghana and were added to make a total of 35 (Appendix A). All statements were randomly numbered and put on cards for the Q sorting process.
Kernis’ dimensions of AL and the number of statements selected for each dimension.
In New Zealand, in order to locate possible organizations for the study, five different organizations were approached. Letters were sent to a government department, a university, an NGO and two research institutes. Two organizations responded positively and granted access, a university and an NGO. In Ghana, similar organizations were selected in order to have comparability . The two types of organizations provide services to their clients; employ different people from different nationalities with different experiences and qualifications and also have different leaders with different styles and approaches. However, these types of organizations have different modes of operation. The two types of organizations, therefore, provide sufficient diversity in leadership to offer examples of different types of leaders and followers.
For each organization a variety of staff was selected. For example, in New Zealand, administration, operational, and managerial staff, were approached and asked to participate. A staff member who willingly agreed to participate in the study was asked to nominate another staff member of his/her choice. This snowballing continued until 30 participants were selected. The sample size of 30 participants provided sufficient number to allow for many factors (for example, four factors with five significant loadings). The respondents were asked to order the Q sets (statements) into three piles; the ones with which they most agreed, the one they most disagreed with and those about which they were neutral. After they were satisfied with their groups they were then asked to select the four most agreed with statements out their agreed pile. They were then asked to select one statement out of the four that they strongly agreed with; was a condition of the instruction. The number of the selected statement was inserted into the first pile in the Q sort distribution for the strongly agreed part. The remaining agreed statements were used to fill other sections of the agreed part of the matrix until that part was completely filled. This same procedure was followed on the loading of the ‘disagreed’ side of the matrix. The statements with which the respondents neither agreed nor disagreed (neutral) with were used to load the neutral portion of the matrix. Then the respondents were asked to review the completed matrix to make any changes to the arrangement if so desired. The matrix was deemed complete when a respondent was convinced that there was no need to make any further change to the arrangements in the matrix. As the respondents sorted the statements, they were invited to comment on the statements, and then invited to comment on why they ranked the statements on the matrix sheet in the way they did. All their comments were recorded either by way of taking notes during the Q sort or audio-recorded and transcribed. Each Q sort lasted between 30 minutes to 1 hour.
The fourth and fifth steps are the analyses and interpretation of the Q sort data. The process begins by entering completely filled out Q sort matrices into the PQ software, a free online software package used for analysing Q data (Schmolck, 2002). The software produces a correlation matrix of all Q sorts. That is, each person’s responses were statistically correlated with the others. The correlation coefficient produced is based on the rank ordering of statements in a continuum so that any pair of respondents with similar orders will have a high correlation. The magnitude of the correlation coefficients generated by the software indicates the degree of similarity among the various perspectives (Ten-Klooster et al., 2008). The data for this study were analysed with principal component analysis on a 30 x 30 matrix with a varimax rotation, following the procedures of recent Q sort studies (Souba and Day, 2006; Souba et al., 2007).
Results
The results of this study involved a detailed qualitative description of 12 factors derived from the Q sort data, however, for the purpose of this article, a summary description of these factors is presented.
New Zealand
University
Below is the description of the three authentic leadership perceptions identified based on the analysis of the Q sample statements and their normalized scores supplemented with comments from respondents in the New Zealand university.
Factor 1: The Participative Democrat
The name, Participative Democrat is given to this factor, as a result of the beliefs of the subjects loaded on it. They believe in equality but they want to be part of, or contribute to ensuring that equality prevails. In decision making, for example, the Participative Democrat believes in democracy, that is, every individual should be given the opportunity to air their views. To the Participative Democrat, authentic leadership mean having a democratic environment where everybody is treated equally and where each person’s views and opinions are considered in decision making.
Factor 2: Leadership by Confidence
The subjects ascribing to the Leadership by Confidence factor feel that leadership could best be seen when there is confidence especially in a firm and fair environment where there is no discrimination against anybody. They also believe that it is the leaders’ responsibility to help followers develop self-confidence. Authentic leadership for adherents of this factor centres on showing confidence in a firm but fair environment while developing others to learn how to believe in themselves.
Factor 3: The Good Shepherd
The adherents of the Good Shepherd factor derived their name from their belief that, there are beautiful talents buried deep inside everybody, but it will take committed leaders to dig them out. To achieve this, the Good Shepherd believes that leaders must set clear goals for themselves and their followers. The meaning of authentic leadership to them centre on leaders playing the key role of helping followers to do more than they normally would and encouraging them by demonstrating sincerity, objectivity and commitment.
NGO
Below is the description of the three authentic leadership perceptions identified from respondents in the New Zealand NGO.
Factor 1: The Dedicated Learner
This perspective is called the Dedicated Learner because they have a quest for new knowledge and experience in their chosen field. They are, therefore, ready to learn and be inspired by leaders so that they can do more than they normally would by themselves. The meaning of authentic leadership to adherents of this perspective focuses on leaders being more or less like coaches or teachers who constantly provide new ideas, knowledge, strategies and experiences to help followers achieve their goals.
Factor 2: Leadership by Endorsement
The Leadership by Endorsement factor were assigned their name because the subjects loaded on this factor lack self-confidence to initiate and sustain progress on their own unless they receive endorsement in the form of encouragement and support from leaders before they feel comfortable to either proceed in what they are doing or start something new. Authentic leadership for proponents of this factor centres on an encouraging and supportive work environment where people are constantly encouraged and supported.
Factor 3: Leadership by Respect
The name given to this factor is due to their concern about respect given (by leaders) to them for who they are, and what, they stand for. With them every leader action taken, that is, telling the truth, acting according to their word, and setting clear goals for followers, are all done out of respect and nothing more. Authentic leadership centres on leaders’ respect for their followers regardless of who they are or what they do.
Ghana
University
Similar to the New Zealand university, the three authentic leadership perceptions were identified based on the analysis of the Q sample statements and their normalized scores supplemented. These are described below.
Factor 1: The Consultative Democrat
The Consultative Democrat derives their name from the belief that there is unity in equality especially when all key players in decision making are consulted, while clear pathways are set to achieve solutions. Authentic leadership for this perspective therefore, centres on leaders’ openness to accommodate individual differences and opinions in a firm and fair environment.
Factor 2: Leadership by Optimism
The Leadership by Optimism perspective derive their name from the belief that, there are more good things in life and, therefore, life must be met with a positive attitude. Positive attitude, they believe, must be the foundation to everyday life. Authentic leadership for adherents of this factor centres on maintaining a positive attitude with a strong sense of faith in God and helping others.
Factor 3: The Sincere Leader
The Sincere Leader factor appears more independent and focused, and takes pride in sincerity. They trust their own skills, ideals, talents and knowledge to the level that they believe what they have is sufficient to see them through any situation they meet at work. The meaning of authentic leadership to adherents of this perspective centre around having the independence and freedom to work by using one’s own initiatives, ideas and skills in a sincere, truthful and open environment.
NGO
Like their university counterparts, the three authentic leadership perceptions identified are described below.
Factor 1: The Independent Enthusiast
The Independent Enthusiast perspective derived the name from their passion to do things independently by laying out the roadmaps to achieving a set goals while helping others do the same. Authentic leadership for proponents of the Independent Enthusiast is, therefore, in the leaders’ role performance, that is, setting goals for themselves and others, creating independence and equal opportunities for followers to act while they (leaders) direct and empower followers towards goal achievement.
Factor 2: The Social Democrat
The Social Democrat perspective derived their name from the belief that decision making must be made collectively while every employee must have equal access and benefit of organizational structures and resources. Authentic leadership for adherents of this factor therefore, is centred on fairness and a firm environment where everybody had equal access to resources and equal opportunities.
Factor 3: The Independent Novice
The Independent Novice believes they need training in order to meet the normal requirements of being regarded as mature and equal participants in their chosen field. But, they want to be active participants in the training process. Authentic leadership for the adherents of this factor would be seen when leaders teach and inspire followers while allowing followers to contribute to the training, that is, by being giving.
Summary of AL dimensions identified in the organizations in the two countries.
Second-order Factor Analysis for All Factors Combined
The meta-analysis in the form of a second-order factor analysis was carried out by taking all the factors as single units and reloading them into the PQ software, following the same procedure used for the two organizations. In all, 33 statements were re-loaded and the factor arrays of each factor in each for the universities, generated initially (and used for the interpretation of factors) were re-entered as individual sorts. Using the formula 1/√n × 2.58 to check for possible factors that can be generated from the unrotated factor matrix resulted in a one-factor solution (Table 3), as only one of the values for the second-order factor analysis for unrotated factor matrix was found to be equal to or above 0.45.
One factor solution for second-order factor analysis (Ghana and New Zealand).
Note: Significant p < 0.01.
The second-order factor analysis for the combined factors of all the organizations in both nations showed commonality in preferences for some attributes of authentic leadership. Critical examination of the one factor generated (Appendix B), shows that in the minds of all the subjects, setting clear goals, being open to followers’ ideas and leader transparency in their dealings with others, being flexible to taking on board followers’ ideas, being inspirational teachers to boost the morale of followers to do more than they normally would by themselves and treating everybody fairly in all situations is a description of an authentic leader.
A second-order factor analysis was also performed on the university and NGO subjects individually across the two countries (Appendix C) and results showed that the correlations between the organizational factors were very substantial, thereby, affirming the earlier claim that, regardless of country, the meaning and preferences for authenticity in leadership would include some commonly preferred AL attributes as well as some specific preferred AL attributes for each of the two organizations across cultures as well.
Discussion
It is apparent that most of the identified attributes that this study found were consistent with the authentic leadership literature but with some significant departures. To the subjects of this study, for a leader to be authentic meant that a leader sets clear goals for him/herself and the followers, is an individual who is open and appreciative, firm but fair to everybody without any bias whatsoever and transparent in all dealings with others and can always come up with different ways and approaches to achieve the set goals while inspirationally teaching their followers. This summation of the attributes of AL addressed the first objective of the study that is, to identify and determine the meaning of authentic leadership as perceived by leaders and followers in Ghana and New Zealand.
The implicit meaning (theory) held by followers about leadership plays a vital role the in assessment of leaders in the work place. For example, researchers (Phillip and Lord, 1981; Meindl et al., 1985; Cronshaw and Lord, 1987; Lord and Maher, 1991; Awamleh and Gardner, 1999) have suggested that followers match leaders with implicit models of what was good or authentic in leadership. This must be scrutinized more closely as the subjects made leader assessments based on this subjective meaning regarding what they considered as authenticity in leaders. The importance of followers’ expectations for perceived leader effectiveness cannot be overemphasized. Studies have shown a direct relationship between followers’ perception of leaders’ effectiveness and followers’ positive outcomes such as organizational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction and commitment (Peters and Austin, 1985; Kouzes and Posner, 1987; Locke and Lathan, 1990; Brown and Peterson, 1993; Parham, 1994; DeGroot et al., 2000).
Following on from the above, it must be noted that subjects in Ghana and New Zealand rated their leaders at their respective work places based on their particular understanding of the meaning of authenticity in leaders. Therefore, this meaning attributed to authenticity must be given due consideration by organizations as this can go a long way to increase the desired organizational outcomes. The argument here is that, the identified authentic leader attributes in this study are positive expectations the subjects in this study would like their leaders to exhibit in the leader–follower exchanges at their work place. The implication here is that if the subjects found these attributes in their leader at the work place, they would feel comfortable building a good and positive personal relationship with their leader. Such relationships were basically founded on trust. Some of the preferred identified authentic leadership attributes in this study, for example, openness and fairness have been identified in the literature as being antecedents to building trust (Gabarro, 1978; Hart et al., 1986; McAllister, 1995).
By ranking leader fairness and openness as part of the universally preferred attributes of authenticity in leaders, the subjects in this study indicated that they would like to work with leaders with whom they can build trust and enjoy high positive organizational outcomes with, as argued in the trust literature. When there was trust in an organization, employees worked freely without having to watch their backs, so to speak, and they knew they were likely to give and receive evidenced-based accounts about every situation from their colleagues and leaders. Such organizational environments have been argued to promote innovation (Poole and Ven, 2004) and desirable organizational outcomes such as commitment, citizenship and high employee performance (Mayer et al., 1995).
Organizationally Preferred AL Attributes
The university subjects in Ghana and New Zealand prefer leader encouragement and support and leader confidence in who they are so that they can help followers to also know who they are. The AL literature does not explicitly identify that authentic leaders are encouraging or supportive of followers per se. However, explaining follower encouragement in the AL literature was mentioned when authentic leaders were said to encourage their followers to imitate their leaders’ authentic behaviours such as self-disclosure, transparency and openness (Clapp-Smith et al., 2009). The university subjects claimed that there were several challenges associated with work and when leaders encouraged and showed support to followers it meant they understood the situation and were ready to lend a hand to help followers through. That meant for the university subjects, leader encouragement must extend beyond pointing followers to being imitators of leaders (as suggested by the AL literature), to leaders empathizing with followers and lending a hand where necessary to help them (followers) through challenges that arose on the job. The implication here was that leader encouragement must not be implied as an attribute but must be a core attribute and also must be extended to include support. These new findings must be validated in a different university context. Leader confidence or efficacy is identified in the AL model as a positive psychological capacity possessed by authentic leaders and being beneficial for goal achievement (Bandura, 1997; Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998; Luthans et al., 2006). ‘Leader confidence has been described as a positive belief or convictions about an individual’s abilities to mobilize the motivation, resources or courses of action needed to successfully execute a specific task within a given context’ (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998: 66).
Like the university subjects, the NGO subjects also share specific desired attributes across cultures. Notable among those found in this study are leader commitment to work and to the people working with them and approachable leaders with whom they can discuss issues. Leader commitment to the work and to the people working with them is not explicitly mentioned as being part of the authentic leader construct in the AL literature. However, that part of the AL construct concerned with seeking the welfare of followers and encouraging them to imitate their leaders’ good virtues could be interpreted as commitment to the followers. The NGO subjects believed that when leaders were committed to the work and the followers, they (leaders) were willing to seek the welfare and well-being of followers and would not deliberately do things to hurt them. By showing commitment, according to the subjects, leaders get in return follower commitment and this they believed was necessary for organizational development. With this finding, the claim that authentic leaders have the welfare and well-being of followers at heart was validated. Leader approachability, like commitment, was also not discussed directly in the AL literature, but it is implied in that part of leader openness associated with authentic leaders where followers can easily approach leaders and discuss issues.
The NGO subjects preferred leader approachability as an attribute of authenticity in leaders. The subjects suggested that when leaders were approachable, it is easier to get as much information as practicable to enhance their job. This they believed can allow for quick feedback and productivity. It seems that the nature of the NGOs (being service providers in the health sector) may account for why the subjects believed that leader commitment and leader approachability was an attribute of AL.
Good listening was the next universally preferred attribute by the subjects in the NGOs across cultures. The subjects of this study believed that good listening is an attribute associated with authenticity in leaders. When leaders’ listen to followers attentively and actively show interest in whatever the followers present to them, according to the subjects they (leaders) will get to know the followers’ concerns, fears and frustrations and can develop strategies to help them. Followers will also get to know more of the leaders’ concerns. The AL literature suggests that authentic leaders have the welfare and well-being of their followers at heart. By implication, being concerned about followers’ welfare and well-being could include having the time and patience to listen and empathizing and helping out where necessary but the AL literature does not mention categorically that authentic leaders are good listeners as the subjects of this study have indicated as being part of authenticity in leaders. This is a new addition which needs to be validated in other areas.
Nationally Preferred AL Attributes
The New Zealand subjects expressed how they wanted authentic leaders to display knowledge. They believed that this knowledge must manifest in fulfilling their (leaders’) roles in the organization and the leader should have the ability to impart such knowledge to followers. The authentic leadership literature is silent about this aspect of AL. Authentic leaders have been argued to have the welfare of their followers in mind and to strive to encourage followers to be like them (Harter, 2002; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Kernis, 2003; Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005). This part of the AL construct is more or less directing followers to imitate the ideals and standards of the authentic leader. However, the New Zealand subjects want something that goes beyond just being encouraged to imitate the leader, to the leader making a conscious and deliberate effort to directly impart knowledge as well. Further, a leader’s confidence in representing the organization and their role in it are also mentioned by the New Zealand subjects as another preferred attribute they feel defines authenticity in leaders. Leader confidence in their role and in representing the organization has been identified as self-efficacy, a positive psychological capacity that enabled leaders to mobilize the motivation and resources to execute a course of action successfully within a given context (Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998; Luthans and Youssef, 2007; Luthans et al., 2007b). This meant for the New Zealand subjects, authenticity in leaders also included the notion of a leader who is self-motivated and can mobilize resources to achieve success in addition to passionately representing his/her organization in any given situation. Finally, the New Zealand subjects believe that authentic leaders are non-judgemental about people. That is, in the minds of the subjects, authentic leaders are accepting without discrimination. Although the AL literature mentions fairness as one of the characteristics of authentic leaders, being non-judgemental and accepting of all people regardless of race, gender, religion or ethnic background has not been mentioned.
Like the New Zealand subjects, the second-order factor analysis showed that the Ghanaian subjects also had specific preferred AL attributes. Two attributes that are specifically preferred by the Ghanaian subjects alone regardless of their organization are God-fearing and objectivity and justice. The Ghanaian subjects believe that being God-fearing forms a core part of authenticity in leaders. This is because they feel that if a leader was God-fearing he/she will possess all the desirable qualities such as being understanding, empathic, supportive and encouraging to mention a few. Ghana is a high power distance country that was classified as highly religious (Hofstede, 1980). It may be that the fact of fearing a common God may help bridge this power gap – the distance between leaders and followers pales into insignificance when compared to the distance between them and their God. This may well contribute to the importance of this factor. Also, in Ghana, God was regarded as a caring and benevolent supreme being and, therefore, if a leader is presumed to be God-fearing then possibly he/she is perceived to exhibit these benevolent characteristic associated with God. This is consistent with the human oriented leadership findings of Wanasika et al., (2010) in sub-Saharan Africa (of which Ghana forms part) that when leaders were perceived as being supportive and considerate, exhibiting compassion and benevolence for followers they were regarded as great leaders in sub-Saharan Africa. Objectivity and justice is another preferred authentic leader attribute specific to the Ghanaian subjects. The subjects feel that for a leader to be authentic, he/she must be free from his/her own biases in making decisions and must be fair and just in every situation. This has been identified in the authentic leadership literature as an attribute of authentic leaders.
Conclusion and Implications
This study offers several significant implications for AL theory and future research. First, the study extends AL theory relative to the meaning giving to AL and extends some attributes that the AL literature has indicated are characteristics of authentic leaders. Luthans and Avolio (2003) indicate that the attribute of hope that authentic leaders have, is a positive psychological capital, which enables them to persevere towards the achievement of goals and when necessary redirect pathways to goals. This implies that authentic leaders set goals and persevere to achieve them but this study explicitly extended AL theory and research by adding that authentic leaders are goal oriented and set clear goals for themselves and their followers and also help followers directly to achieve the set goals. Similarly, two other attributes of inspirational teaching and good listening which were not originally mentioned as being characteristics of authentic leaders, have been found in this study to be an important part of the AL construct. This also extended the characteristics of authentic leaders in the AL theory. Other extensions have been made; for example, proponents of AL theory (Harter, 2002; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; Kernis, 2003; Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005) have argued that authentic leaders are fair in all their dealings with followers and in their decision making. However, this study found that subjects not only believe that fairness is a characteristic of authentic leaders but also firmness. Further, authentic leaders are argued to display openness and transparency in decisions and actions. But this study extends ‘openness’ to include appreciating follower efforts and contributions. A similar picture is also supported regarding encouragement of followers by authentic leaders as indicated in extant AL theory. This study extends the encouragement part of the AL theory to include direct leader support for follower activities.
Implicit in the majority of extant, AL theory is the notion that AL theory has been argued as being universally applicable in all contexts and cultures. This study supports the claims of the AL literature but some extensions of AL attributes are made based on the findings of this study to suit the individual contexts of the organizations used. Across cultures, the study finds that leader goal orientedness, openness and appreciation, leader firmness and fairness, transparency, leader flexibility and inspirational teaching, are preferred as constituting authentic leadership in this study.
Therefore, in defining AL in the organizations used for this study or similar ones in different contexts, these identified characteristics cannot be ignored. Further, relative to AL theory, this study supports the proposition that authentic leaders possess positive psychological capital such as hope and optimism (Luthans and Avolio, 2003). That is, authentic leaders persevere towards the achievement of goals and, when necessary, redirect the pathways to reach goals set. The study extends the flexibility part of hope authentic leaders were said to possess. Flexibility is found not only in redirecting pathways, but also in listening to, and taking on board, followers’ contributions.
In addition, the study also found that certain AL attributes are preferred specifically by some of the organizations. For example, two AL attributes including: leader encouragement and support, leader confidence in who they are and having the ability to help followers know who they are characteristics of authentic leaders, are specifically preferred by subjects the universities across nations. The NGO subjects in the two nations however, specifically prefer leader commitment to the work and those working with them and leader approachability. This finding indicates that apart from the commonly preferred AL attributes certain organizational contexts by virtue of the nature of the work involved would prefer additional AL attributes that need to be taken into consideration when defining AL in such organizations.
Also, relative to AL theory, this study introduces a cultural dimension into the study of authentic leadership. Past studies in AL have been largely limited to Western cultures (especially the USA) and very few to developing countries. However, this study supports specific AL applications to Ghana, a developing nation, and extends it to include a cultural dimension. The Ghanaian subjects mention that authenticity in leaders includes being God-fearing. This is specifically desired by the subjects in Ghana.
In conclusion, authenticity in leaders has received, and is still receiving, considerable research attention today and given the constant and continual scandals being uncovered at national, organizational and multi-national levels, leader ethics and morality continue to be questioned. This has brought authentic leadership to the forefront of research in an attempt to validate the concepts of universal applicability. However, authenticity has been argued as being an ‘honorary’ title bestowed on leaders by followers through leader–follower exchanges. This, therefore, introduces follower expectations and perceptions, making the authentic leadership construct purely subjective in nature (but no less valid for that). Interest is growing in research circles into this subjectivity and this trend will likely continue in the future.
Results reported in this study showed that with regards to the respondents used in the two countries, AL means is achieved when leaders are able to set clear goals for themselves and their followers and provide guidelines and direct help for goals to be achieved. This, the respondents believed demands openness on the part of the leaders to receive follower ideas and also appreciating follower strengths in addition to being firm, and treating followers equally without any bias whatsoever. It also includes leaders being transparent, exhibiting flexibility and being inspirational teachers.
The results also introduce contextual preferences for some desired attributes that extend the AL theory. Organizationally, the respondents in the universities in the two countries uniquely preferred two additional attributes; encouragement and support, and leaders showing confidence in who they are and ability to help others whereas the NGO subjects preferred leader commitment to the work and the people they work with, and being approachable and a good listener. Nationally, the New Zealand respondents solely preferred leaders who are knowledgeable even if they are arrogant, non-judgemental and confident in representing their organizations while their Ghanaian counterparts rather preferred God-fearing and objectivity and justice as being part of AL.
If practising leaders and researchers understand what followers meant by authenticity in leaders, it will help them find ways and means to develop training specifically suitable for organizations, which, could help maximize the chances of winning or building trust of followers and subsequently attaining higher organizational success for the future.