Authentic leadership, sustainable employee well-being and retention: a multi-method study

The contemporary workplace, characterized by volatility, remote work arrangements, and demand for psychological safety, has intensified the search for leadership styles that promote sustainable employee wellbeing and retention. While authentic leadership (AL) is theorised to be a potent antidote to burnout and turnover, the specific pathways through which its components operate remain underexplored. This research examines how and when the four dimensions of AL (self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, internalised moral perspective) differentially influence multi-faceted employee wellbeing and turnover intention.

Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory and Social Exchange theory, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal dyadic survey (N = 312 employee-leader pairs) and a randomized field experiment with a wait-list control group (N = 60 leaders, 280 employees) in a manufacturing firm in Kenya. The intervention was a six-week targeted leadership development programme focused on the specific behaviours associated with each AL dimension.

Study 1 (longitudinal survey) showed that relational transparency indirectly predicted thriving and engagement via psychological safety and trust; balanced processing indirectly predicted reduced emotional exhaustion via procedural justice; and internalised moral perspective indirectly predicted engagement via meaningfulness and perceived organizational support. Wellbeing outcomes fully mediated the AL-turnover intention relationship. Study 2 (field experiment) produced significant improvements in all mediators and wellbeing outcomes, reducing turnover intention scores by 32% at three-month follow-up. Mediation of change scores confirmed that the intervention worked through the theorized mechanisms. While our three-wave design establishes temporal precedence for parallel mediation, inferences about sequential (serial) mediation remain tentative.

Authentic leadership's power lies not in a single composite construct but in the provision of distinct psychological resources through specific behavioural dimensions. Organizations should train leaders in transparency, balanced processing, and moral perspective as separate, learnable skills to foster sustainable wellbeing and retention.