Impact of Big Five personality traits on authentic leadership

PurposeThe bulk of the current research on authentic leadership focuses on the examination of its consequences. Little attention has been paid to the predictors of authentic leadership. We examined how the Big Five personality traits can predict an authentic leadership style.Design/methodology/appro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLeadership & organization development journal Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 208 - 218
Main Authors Shahzad, Khurram, Raja, Usman, Hashmi, Syed Danial
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bradford Emerald Publishing Limited 19.03.2021
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Subjects
Authenticity
Behavior
Decision making
Ethics
Leadership
Morality
Perceptions
Personality
Personality tests
Personality traits
Psychology
Self awareness
Authentic leadership style
Positive leadership
Big five personality traits
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Summary:PurposeThe bulk of the current research on authentic leadership focuses on the examination of its consequences. Little attention has been paid to the predictors of authentic leadership. We examined how the Big Five personality traits can predict an authentic leadership style.Design/methodology/approachUsing multisource time-lagged data from 305 leader–subordinate dyads, we examined how the Big Five traits (extraversion, agreeableness, consciousness, openness to experience and neuroticism) are related to authentic leadership. While leader personality was measured through self-reports, we measured authentic leadership style through subordinate reported data.FindingsWe found good support for the proposed hypotheses. While extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience were positively related to authentic leadership style, neuroticism was negatively related to it.Practical implicationsThe findings support the trait view of leadership, suggesting that the personality traits of a leader can predict his/her authentic leadership style. These findings hold promise for managers in that they can use personality inventories and tests in the selection and evaluation process to select and train potential authentic leaders.Originality/valueWe proposed a unique idea and tested it using leader–subordinate dyadic data that are time-lagged to test our hypotheses.
ISSN:0143-7739
1472-5347
DOI:10.1108/LODJ-05-2019-0202