A multilevel study of authentic leadership, collective efficacy, and team performance and commitment

Recent societal and governmental concerns about transparency and corruption-free governance have created a need for a more transparent and fair leadership style. Resultantly, in the last decade, authentic leadership has been a focus of scholarly attention. Authentic leadership is a relatively emerging leadership style characterized by transparency and relational fairness. Taking a different and challenging route, this study focuses on team phenomena rather than individual outcomes. We develop a multilevel model in which we study the impact of authentic leadership on team performance and team commitment. Underlying psychological mechanisms are also uncovered, and we study the intervening role of collective efficacy. We collected data from 60 teams working in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. Multilevel confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel structural equation modeling were conducted using Mplus. The results largely supported the study hypotheses and confirmed the direct and indirect effects of authentic leadership on team performance and team commitment. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.