Assessing the efficacy of Authentic Leadership group-coaching

Abstract

Introduction:National survey data from the US suggests that over the last decade there has been a growing crisis in confidence in business and political leadership, which is possibly one reason for the increased scientific research into the emerging field of Authentic Leadership – AL. Much evidence is starting to accumulate into both a conceptualisation of AL and its potential organisational benefits. However, what seems slow to follow is a scientific approach to Authentic Leadership Development – ALD. This study reports on the efficacy of one particular form of ALD, namely authentic leadership group-coaching.Design:Five 3-month long group-coaching interventions were run over a period of two years and a repeated measures design was employed to evaluate whether these AL coaching groups had an impact on the scores of two scientifically validated AL measures; the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) and the Authentic Leadership Inventory (ALI).Results:Analysis of the ALQ and ALI results found significant differences in the scores of both of these instruments. ALQ: t(24)=2.83, p<.009 & ALI: t(24)=3.84, p<.001.Conclusion:It was therefore concluded that the relatively short-term Authentic Leadership coaching group is an effective form of Authentic Leadership Development.