Do Authentic Leadership and Transformational Leadership Promote LMX in a Context of Political Instability?

Abstract

In a context of change, the literature highlights the importance of both transformational and authentic leadership styles in maintaining the quality of the relationship between leaders and followers. To the authors' knowledge, no research has addressed this relationship in a context of political instability. So, this research seeks to study the influence of both transformational and authentic leadership styles on LMX in a period of political instability. The objective is to know whether these two styles of leadership remain effective in a context of democratic transition. To this end, a quantitative approach is adopted. A questionnaire was distributed to 126 managers belonging to industrial firms in Tunisia. Unlike the literature, authentic leadership does not influence the LMX. The latter is partially influenced by transformational leadership. Therefore, it is important to consider other factors such as political skills in order to maintain the quality of LMX in a situation of political instability.