Authentic Leadership Development and Employee Engagement
Summary
Authentic leadership is characterised by self-awareness, transparency, ethical conduct and balanced information processing. Leaders who cultivate authenticity demonstrate consistency between values and actions, fostering trust and psychological safety within teams. Developmental pathways include reflective practice, mindfulness interventions and structured coaching, which together reinforce genuine leader–follower relationships. Employee engagement, defined as a positive, fulfilling work-related state of mind, emerges when workers experience meaning, vigour and dedication. Authentic leadership influences engagement through the creation of supportive climates, the enhancement of psychological capital and the establishment of affective commitment. As a result, engaged employees exhibit higher creativity, resilience and organisational citizenship behaviours, contributing to innovation and performance across sectors. Practical applications span leadership development programmes in healthcare, finance and public administration, where authenticity is leveraged to navigate complexity and sustain workforce motivation on a global scale.
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Authentic Leadership Development and Employee Engagement publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in authentic leadership development and employee engagement across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Authentic leadership: A leadership style defined by self-awareness, transparency, moral perspective and balanced information processing.
Employee engagement: A positive work-related psychological state characterised by vigour, dedication and absorption.
Psychological capital (PsyCap): A composite construct of hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism.
Psychological safety: A shared belief that the work environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.
Affective commitment: The emotional attachment and identification an employee feels towards an organisation.
References
- Authentic Leadership and Improved Individual Performance: Affective Commitment and Individual Creativity’s Sequential Mediation. Frontiers in Psychology (2021).
- Working from home during the corona pandemic: Investigating the role of authentic leadership, psychological capital, and gender on employee performance. Cogent Business & Management (2021).
- Authentic leadership and work engagement: The indirect effects of psychological safety and trust in supervisors. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology (2019).
- Be(com)ing Real: a Multi-source and an Intervention Study on Mindfulness and Authentic Leadership. Journal of Business and Psychology (2019).
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