Leadership research will benefit from bringing in the subjective realities of becoming a leader by considering the leadership journey. Generating an understanding of how leaders turn episodes in time into meaningful subjective narratives helps shed light on the meaning-making process. We seek in this inquiry to understand self-awareness with a narrative meaning-making process. In this study, we adopt a narrative research approach for analyzing the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, who is widely acknowledged as an authentic leader. The study explores individual experiences of becoming a leader and factors leading to the manifestation of authentic leadership behaviour as well as followers’ outcomes. The study will also contribute towards the understanding of triggering events experienced by the leader at different points in life which have led to self-awareness.

This study considers the multi-level research design to build on the Conservation of Resource (COR) theory to help develop a model that links authentic leadership to followers’ outcomes. Though previous studies have examined the direct effect of leadership and followers’ outcome at the individual level, findings of the impact of authentic leadership at the cross-level and multi-level are limited. Consistent with our hypotheses, the findings of the study, from a sample of 547 dyads from the financial sector in India, revealed that authentic leadership has a significant impact on authentic followership and team-level work engagement. The cross-level analysis indicated that 8.4 per cent of the variance in authentic followership is attributable to authentic leadership at the team level. Likewise, the multi-level analysis revealed that 9.4 per cent of the variance at work engagement between the teams is attributable to authentic leadership. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed further JEL: M12

PurposeThe present study had two objectives, first objective was to examine the impact of authentic leadership on followers' well-being and work engagement. The second objective was to examine the moderating role of authentic leadership and followers' outcomes. Despite an immense amount of research on authentic leadership, how and when authentic leadership is more or less effective in promoting the well-being and work engagement of followers is little known. Drawing from the conservation of resource theory, the authors draw upon the interactionist perspective and suggest psychological capital is a dispositional boundary condition that influences the effectiveness of authentic leadership in promoting well-being and work engagement of followers.Design/methodology/approachUsing cross-sectional research design data were collected from 547 team members nested under 118 team leaders from the financial sector in India. The study used structural equation modelling and hierarchical regression analysis to examine the hypothesised relationships.FindingsThe findings from the study revealed that authentic leadership predicts followers' psychological well-being and work engagement. Also as proposed, the study found psychological capital moderates the relationship between authentic leadership and the well-being of followers. However, the study found psychological capital does not moderate the relationship between authentic leadership and followers' work engagement.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has helped expand the nomological network of authentic leadership by examining the authentic leadership model with followers' psychological well-being and work engagement. Further, the findings suggest that psychological capital being a dispositional boundary condition, it plays a contingent role in explaining the role of authentic leadership in promoting the well-being of followers.Practical implicationsThe results offer strong practical implications that can be considered as the basis for actionable strategies by the human resource management system of the organisation to enhance authentic leadership and psychological capital.Originality/valueThe study is unique in its scope and contribution, as it tries to develop an understanding of how and when authentic leadership promotes psychological well-being and work engagement by considering an interactionist approach in the Indian context.

Over the last decade, an increasing number of academicians and practitioners have noted the need to adopt authentic leadership (AL) for sustainable business performance Covelli & Mason, 2017;George, 2003;Malik & Khan, 2019). There also is a demand from society for organizational leaders to not only emphasize generating profit, but maintain high levels of integrity and morality (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2008). Authentic leadership behavior provides not only the means to build an effective follower-leader relationship, but also to rebuild employee trust and foster corporate employee behavior (George & Sims, 2007). Authentic leadership is characterized by a leader's transparency, genuineness, openness, self-awareness, and clarity in behavior (Luthans & Avolio, 2003;Wang et al., 2014).Various researchers have emphasized the role of self-awareness triggers (SATs) and their impact on authentic leadership, but a review of the literature shows a lack of conceptualisation and reliable scales to examine self-awareness triggers. Thus, this study developed a reliable and valid scale, and examined the role of self-awareness triggers in authentic leadership. The research was based on four separate studies to develop the scale and analyse the impact of the SAT on authentic leadership. In Study 1, the self-awareness trigger was operationalized, and items were generated using qualitative research. Study 2 conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the factor structure of the construct. Study 3 conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was to examine construct validity. Reliability and construct validity were assessed based on composite reliability, convergent validity, and divergent validity. Scale development led to a two-dimensional self-awareness trigger scale. Study 4 examined the impact of the SAT on authentic leadership. We collected data on authentic leadership from team members, and self-awareness trigger data from team leaders. Data were collected from full-time employees in the financial sector of India. The study had 471 dyads of team leaders and team members. Findings indicated that SAT is related positively to authentic leadership. Findings suggest that organizations proactively can enhance authentic leadership through SAT.