Nature and Outcomes of Longitudinal Authentic Leadership Profiles.

Purpose: Although authentic leadership is known to improve caregivers' functioning, health, and quality of care, information is lacking about whether the authentic leadership subdimensions may be distinguished from an overarching authentic leadership global construct, and how these global and specific factors can combine within various profiles to explain outcomes over time. Relying on an integration of person- and variable-centered perspectives, this study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the dimensionality of the authentic leadership construct. Specifically, it aims to examine the profiles taken by authentic leadership dimensions, document their stability over time, and explore the associations between these profiles and outcomes (need satisfaction, anhedonia, and safety of care).

Methods: A questionnaire was completed twice over a one-year period by 750 healthcare professionals. Latent transition analysis was the primary method of analysis.

Results: Our results showed that employees' perceptions of authentic leadership behaviors reflected an overarching construct simultaneously coexisting with four specific dimensions (self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, relational transparency, and balanced processing). We identified four profiles highly stable over time: Low Global Authentic, Normative, Low Specific Self-Awareness, and High Specific Balanced Processing. Finally, employees' global and specific (relatedness, competence, and autonomy) levels of need satisfaction as well as perceptions of safety of care and anhedonia differed as a function of their profile, with the most positive outcomes associated with the Normative profile.

Conclusion: In addition to confirming that authentic leadership may be studied as a global construct, this study highlights the importance of considering the combinations of global and specific factors in explaining variations in caregivers' need satisfaction, anhedonia, and quality of care over a one year-period. Our findings suggest that managers should strive to implement a complete array of authentic leadership behaviors at a balanced level to ensure positive outcomes.