The Impact of Authentic Leadership on Employee Job Satisfaction: Study Conducted in a Sample of Lebanese Organizations
Authors:   , Pashayan Carmen Sarkis 
Published: June 2024

The aim of this study is to explore the impact of the four components of Authentic Leadership (Self-Awareness, Balanced Processing, Internalized Moral Perspective and Relational Transparency) on job satisfaction in a sample of Lebanese organizations. Job satisfaction is very essential topic for organizations as it is an important part of employee’s lifecycle and motivation to remain loyal to and employed with an organization. It contributes to raising profits and retaining high performing employees. Job satisfaction aspects studied are: feeling excited to come to work, feeling secure to provide suggestions and innovative ideas, feeling empowered to make own decision and feeling more self-aware. The survey questionnaire which was used as a tool is composed of 29 questions measuring two factors: employee perception of whether their leaders are authentic leaders and employee level of job satisfaction. The sample consists of 235 employees from both For-Profit and Not-For-Profit organizations. The hypotheses examined the impact of the four components of Authentic Leadership on job satisfaction factors and on job satisfaction overall. These hypotheses were tested using Regression analysis, Factor analysis, Independent T-test and one-way ANOVA and the results attained were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The results of the survey indicated that employees who assume that their leaders are role-models of knowing their strengths and weaknesses, understanding their purpose of leadership and feeling comfortable to express their feelings, will be most likely satisfied and excited to come to work. Moreover, in the survey conducted, these employees demonstrated that when leaders listen closely to them, ask feedback and analyze data objectively before making decisions, they will have higher overall job satisfaction. Furthermore, the study exposed that as leaders show consistency between their actions and beliefs, allow other people to know where they stand on controversial issues, treat all the employees fairly, admit their mistakes, encourage open and honest debate at all times and share organization information, they will be perceived as credible and trustworthy and this will have a significantly positive impact on employee job satisfaction; therefore the results of this study in general emphasized that a significant association existed between authentic leadership and employee overall job satisfaction. Based on this study, it is recommended to have human resource professionals who could use authentic leadership in employee recruitment as well as design employee training around authentic traits which may reduce job-related stress, absenteeism, and job turnover. The study additionally revealed that employees working in Not-For-Profit organizations are more satisfied than employees working in For-Profit organizations. Thus, this study should also give clarity to the leaders of For-Profit organizations in Lebanon to focus more on developing or training their leaders to possess authentic leadership traits, considering the importance of authentic leadership practices on employee overall job satisfaction.