Team Level Antecedents and Consequences of Authentic Leadership: Moderated-Mediation Model

Abstract

This study employs a moderated-mediation model to investigate the influence mechanism of leaders’ moral courage and the cynicism climate on followers’ perceptions of authentic leadership. It further examines how followers’ perceptions shape team-level behaviors, specifically group organizational citizenship behaviors and group counterproductive work behaviors. Grounded in attribution theory, the hypothesized model was designed. A cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect data from 604 academic staff across 146 teams at a public university.The findings reveal a positive relationship between leaders’ moral courage and perceived authentic leadership, moderated by the cynicism climate. Perceived authentic leadership is positively associated with group organizational citizenship behaviors and negatively related to group counterproductive work behaviors.This study addresses a gap in the current literature by examining the impact of followers’ perceptions of authentic leadership on team behaviors, with a focus on the role of “leader’s moral courage” and the “climate of cynicism” in shaping these perceptions.By applying the fundamental principles of attribution theory to human resource management and leadership, this study enhances leaders’ understanding of how followers interpret authentic leadership and offers insights into the mechanisms shaping these perceptions within public universities.