A Literature Review on the Achievements and Challenges in Authentic Leadership Research : Focusing on antecedents, outcomes, moderators, and mediators of AL

Sakamoto, Manabu

Authentic Leadership

In the current rapidly shifting social environment, the benefits of Authentic Leadership (AL) are gaining attention. This study conducted a tertiary review of existing secondary research (systematic literature reviews) on AL in order to explore AL that adapts to the modern environment. The purpose is to clarify the current state of AL research by organizing the conceptual framework, antecedents, outcome factors, moderators, and mediators of AL identified in the secondary studies from the primary research, and to provide a comprehensive and integrated overview for future research and practical application concerning AL. This study organized antecedent factors for AL at the level unit and explicitly indicated their respective development potential. Additionally, the outcome factors were categorized into behavior, attitude, results, and leadership-related factors, and then organized by level. Furthermore, we classified moderating and mediating factors into employee & job-centered, leader-centered, team-centered, and climate & organization-centered categories, and identified the classification of outcome variables influenced by each factor. This new perspective on AL research offers insights into the future direction of AL research and contributes to the development of AL in practice. Four future research topics to explore in AL studies were proposed: ⑴ Suggesting specific methods that serve as trigger events for leaders’ AL development; ⑵ Exploring AL as a moderator and mediator variable; ⑶ Advancing AL research using mixed-methods approaches; ⑷ The necessity of studying AL using Japanese samples.