The Relationship of Authentic Leadership and Growth, Retention, and Productivity

Leadership has been heralded a critical component for the achievement of successful organizational outcomes. Recent financial, social, psychological, and environmental challenges that are being faced on a global scale have raised the call for new and effective leadership. Researchers and practitioners have expressed the need for the development of good leaders. Authentic leadership (AL) has been described as the root theory of all other forms of positive leadership and offers a way to describe and develop more effective leadership and drive veritable sustained superior performance. Authentic leaders are proposed to have greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors, seeking to develop themselves, and, by modeling these behaviors, developing followers as well. One of the factors that affect effective leadership is the climate in which leadership takes place. When operating in a highly developed organization, AL is posited to effect organizational performance positively. There are also those who question the need for AL and whether it can be truly effective. This quantitative study sought to answer these questions, in part, by comparing the leader’s AL from the followers’ perspectives to the specific organizational outcomes of growth, retention, and productivity. The setting for this study was 10 real estate offices located in south Florida. Data were collected using the ALIQ, summarized on an aggregated basis, and compared to the outcomes. The results of the study showed that all leaders were considered to have some AL, yet, they were inconclusive and indeterminate as to the relationship of AL with growth, retention, and productivity. Future research should be conducted, replicating this study across additional sites and over time. This was the first study of this kind and developed a model for future studies on a larger scale and on a longitudinal basis. The study also provided a tool to measure leadership development training programs that purported to increase AL and the components thereof