Self-leadership as an antecedent of authentic leadership : an empirical study among public sector employees

Abstract

There are scholarly claims that self-leadership and authentic leadership have positive outcomes for organisations. In pursuit of understanding the competency development needs of public sector leaders, this study examines the infl uence of selfleadership on authentic leadership among public sector managers. A convenience sample of 183 public sector managers applying for MBA and leadership programmes to a South African Business School participated in the study. The Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) was used to measure authentic leadership and the Abbreviated Self-Leadership Questionnaire (ASLQ) to measure self-leadership. The findings indicate that self-leadership positively influences all four dimensions of authentic leadership, namely self-awareness, balanced processing, relationaltransparency and internalised-moral-perspective. The implications for leadership development stemming from the findings are discussed here.