Authentic Leadership and Job Performance

This assignment delves into the connection between authentic leadership, psychological capital, and job performance. It analyzes the mediating role of follower positivity in influencing this relationship. The research utilizes a multi-level approach to investigate various constructs and their interplay within an organizational context. Students are expected to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize findings, and contribute to a deeper understanding of authentic leadership's impact on employee well-being and performance.

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PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PEROFMANCE
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Introduction
In management, human resource forms a significant part in the success of any
organization. For this reason, there is a need to come up with appropriate ways of improving this
workforce. Organizations can employ several approaches to enhance employees' performance in
the workplace. Such approaches include; authentic leadership, leader-member exchange (LMX)
and psychological capital. This paper seeks to compare authentic leadership, LMX, and
psychological capital, elaborate the means of building PsyCap in employees, as well as
evaluating the impact of emotion on professionals' performance.
Comparison of approaches to leadership
Authentic leadership
Authentic leadership refers to a method to administration where the leaders' legitimacy is
kept through maintaining an honest relationship with the followers by valuing their efforts which
are built on the ethical foundation (Leroy et al., 2015). The leader is positive individuals who are
self-aware. They recognize their strength, weaknesses, and emotions and their impact on their
leadership. They show their followers their true .personality and do not pretend to show a faked
image in public which is not their trait. Therefore their mistakes do not bring them to fear that
the other people will view them as weak but accept that self-actualization cannot be sufficiently
achieved but is a continuous endeavor. Organizational goals and mission drive them, and this
makes them results-oriented people. They consider the goals of an organization as more critical
than their self-interest. To achieve this, they work together with the employees in a cooperative
manner and using the appropriate communication skills. Finally, they are persistent and generally
focus on the long-term and do not only concentrate on achieving short-term objectives.

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LMX Model
Leader-member exchange is a theory which has its basis in a two-way relationship
between a leader and his or her followers – dyadic relationship (Harris & Kirkman, 2014). It is a
widely accepted and used leadership approach and involves a leader developing an exchange
with every employee under him. The quality of this relationship profoundly influences
employees' response to their work, decisions, ordinarily emotional and understand one another
not only in their place of work but even beyond (Read & Laschinger, 2015). Leader-member
exchange approach promotes positive employment experiences and may result in the success of
an organization. The theory aims at explaining the effects of leadership on employees and the
organization as a whole. It suggests that leaders develop strong trust and respectful relationship
with some of the employees in the business. This result in a leader not having a typical
relationship with all the workers and their output relate to how the leader treats them. It is right
to say that citizenship behavior positively refers to leader-member exchange in that, the actions
of the two advocate, correlate and are useful to the organization.
Psychological capital
Psychological Capital is defined as ones positive psychological state of development that
involves having four characteristics such as self-efficacy, optimism, resilience and hope (Badran
&Youssef-Morgan, 2015). It concerns favorable situations where challenges are dealt with,
expectations are determined, individuals are motivated, and accomplishments are achieved in the
face of many odds. Neuroplasticity is an area where the concept of Psychological Capital proves
to be relevant and can be developed and managed. Initially, the idea was designed for
organizations, but presently it is applied in all field of leadership. Fred Luthans, a pioneer of the

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theory, suggested that organizations require investing on the psychological development of
employees to gain competitive advantage and to beat the competitors. According to Fred Luthans
and Youssef-Morgan, strengths, excellence and thriving in humans still are leverage to explore
into in mostly uncharted territories. Employees who are working in a friendly environment strive
at work and are regarded to be satisfied in his life. In this case, those factors help in improving
the wellbeing of an individual should be encouraged and enhanced for instance those that
concern is growing one’s health status.
These theories are concerned with improving human capital and promoting employees'
welfare which enables individuals and organizations to achieve their goals. They, therefore,
strive to shape the leadership to lead the team of employees in a manner that does not lead to the
conflict by the parties involved (Hirst et al., 2016). They agree on the need to develop a good
relationship and sharing of information with the employees by the management. An effective
leader should also work to minimize his shortcoming from affecting the employees whom they
lead that have detrimental effects on the organization’s performance.
Ways of building PsyCap in Workforce
Human resource development is a continuous process of trying to improve the quality of
employees by particularly inspiring positive organizational behavior. The best four order
positive psychological resources that form part in psychological capital (PsyCap) are hope,
efficacy, resilience, and optimism abbreviated as HERO (Peterson & Hannah, 2014). These
factors meet the qualifying criteria of research-based theories that are positive, valid and have
implications for well-being, behavior, and performance of employees. PsyCap has scientific,
evidence-based rigor as well as relevance in practice. In the present day running of the

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organization, turbulence has become a collective experience between the management and the
employees. These occurrences necessitate further research on human capital development to give
guidelines on how to curb the issues. PsyCap is the way to go as it yields rich information when
carefully undertaken and all aspect of employees' life and signs of progress are highlighted.
Approaches to developing psychological capital
In developing human capital through PsyCap, Kwok et al. (2015) suggest four positive
approaches that suit the positive organizational scholarship framework. The first step is to adopt
a unique lens that changes the interpretation of the characteristics which may or may not be
desirable. Secondly, the approach is comprised of positive outcomes that are extraordinary which
are framed regarding positive deviance rather than negative deviance. The positive deviance is
therefore exemplified at the personal level to spur positive performance. Thirdly, an approach
incorporates positive bias which put more weight on positive than negative psychological
construct, dynamics, and outcomes. The fourth and the last approach emphasizes on the need to
understand the best human attributes that include flourishing, performance at one's peak,
thriving, excellence, virtuousness, compassion among other positive life promising dynamics
(Choi & Seibert, 2018). The positivity emphasized is geared towards making an individual better
and rather not necessarily to attract so many other benefits. Negativity contributes to the use of
excess resources as its result to the urgent needs that require attention and resolutions. Positive
Organizational behavior is a subset of Positive Organization Scholarship that deals with the
study and application of desirable human resources and measurable psychological constructs and
can be managed effectively to improve on performance in daily business activities.

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PsyCap capabilities
The four construct given as hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism have a common trait
of portraying a sense of control, intentionality and a drive for goal pursuit. Their theme is to
appraise the circumstances positively and ensure probable success achieved through possession
of motivated effort and hard work. The optimistic individual maintains a positive mind of
expecting a fortune and having high efficacy will allow him to choose those challenging goals
and be motivated to work towards achieving them (Roche et al., 2014). Hopeful individuals are
likely to be led to try multiple pathways to achieve the set goals, and the resilience will aid in the
recovery from common setbacks that face individuals and that are stumbling block in a try to
achieve the goals.
However, the first order psychological resources of resilience, hope, optimism, and
efficacy have specific characteristics that have discriminant validity. Optimism is ordinarily
reactive and usually happens after a positive or negative experience has been faced (Martin et al.
2016). On the other hand hope, efficacy and favorable view of optimism are more proactive
naturally. Beyond conception distinction, discriminant validity of these construct has been
empirically established in additional analysis apart from the PsyCap analysis.
Leadership development is significant for global and corporate competitiveness and
sustainability. The organization can be graded regarding the quality of its management,
behavioral skills as well as areas of knowledge needed by the organization. Also, the focus needs
to be placed on the critical roles of psychological resources boosted by self-regulation
techniques. Leaders, therefore, need to develop and expand their psychological capital and
cultivate positive psychological resources (Goldsmith et al., 2018) All leadership journeys

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encounter challenges that affect the performance and by employing psychological resources, one
can develop positive mental and psychological mind to deal with demands of the changing
environment.
Psychological capital assists the employees to be better off emotionally and to be in a
better position to support their colleagues that aid in improving inter-personal exchanges. It
enables individuals to solve their complex challenges, create new paradigms and give solutions
to the ever-evolving conditions. The leader ought to exhibit a formidable ability to engage in a
comprehensive perspective to create a conducive working environment that is essential for the
success in the workplace (Baron & Hmieleski, 2016). Thus, a leader needs a capacity to set a
tone and set an excellent example for others to emulate. Nevertheless, psychological resources
empower leaders to respond effectively to constant demand and pressure from the employees. He
owns a responsibility and authority that are regulated by the capacity of his knowledge and skills
gained through experience.
Educators believe that by participating in a leadership development program associated
with increasing psychological capital, individuals become better leaders. Their inner resources
and behaviors recalibrated to make him or her an active leader. To build efficiency opportunities
are provided for learning the new skills and practicing them in an environment where support is
given. This is likely to build others ability to respond to tough situations.
Building resilience in employees
Resilience is one of the aspects which for many years, researchers and scholars have
thought it to be an intrinsic trait. Besides, recent studies show that resilience is a state in which
individuals can gradually develop over time. A survey carried out by clinical officers on mothers

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and children who have schizophrenia showed that some children who experienced this disability
were traumatized and failed to pull themselves out of it (Bouckenooghe & Raja, 2015).
However, some psychologically struggled with their disorder and eventually lived healthy lives
after that. It is, therefore, possible to develop resilience where it did not exist and propagate it
where only a little thrived. The following are some of how organizations can build resilience in
their professionals.
First of all, organizations can make use of positive emotions. Most organizations often
focus on the negative deeds of their employers and severally criticize them for their failures and
forget to acknowledge them of their successful activities in their profession. This act demotivates
employees and slowly kills their resilience. To curb this existing behavioral trait, managers and
top authorities should have positive emotions towards their employees. For example, a manager
can acknowledge the efforts of an employee and motivate him or her to do even better in his or
her failed expectations. With this positive emotions, such an employee will eventually bounce
back and regain normalcy in their work positions.
Strategies of building resilience
Additionally, organizations should come up with proactive approaches to build resilience.
Research shows that annually, employees may shift to more than ten job opportunities.
Traumatic events in the workplace sometimes cause some of these shifts. Organizations should,
therefore, come up with strategies to build resilience and thus make them persevere adverse
challenges in their professions. Below are some of the policies that can be put into use.
Risk-focused strategy.

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This strategy aims at analyzing and anticipating the risks that may occur in an
organization and particularly those which can lower professionals’ resilience and therefore
reduce chances of such risks to occur. Researchers have found out that individuals often find
support from social organizations such as families and friends when they face traumatic events
(Dawkins et al., 2015). The idea can also be applied in human resource development in
organizations. For example, companies can build a strong organizational culture to deal with
risks that lower professionals' resilience such as sexual harassment, misconduct among
employees, among many others. Although it is not possible to anticipate what may happen in the
internal and external environment, an influential organization culture can deter such risks from
occurring.
Asset-focused strategy
This strategy aims at developing the employees as assets of the company. Organizations
can acquire human capital through training employees). This way, employees gain more
knowledge and skills in their professions and therefore avoid failures in the workplace. This is
likely to improve their resilience. Additionally, companies can ask to provide grants to those who
want to further their studies and promote those who show outstanding performance in their
workplace. As Luthans et al. (2014) point out, teachers improve their resilience when promoted
to higher education levels.
Suggested ways of building hope, optimism and self- efficacy
Hope is another psychological capital capability that organizations should aim at
developing. Hope is generally the idea of having positive expectations to particular goals and
objectives. Organizations can build hope in their employees by organizing motivational talks and

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encouraging their professionals always work hard for the benefit of their organization. Optimism,
on the other hand, can be built by rewarding workers upon achievement of some specific
organizational goals through salary increase, promotion, offering incentives among many
different ways. Self -efficacy refers to self-confidence. This can easily be achieved by assigning
professionals specific tasks, embarking on them and trusting the quality of work they offer.
Involving such professionals in decision making makes them believe there are crucial in the
operations of the organization and hence built self-efficacy on them.
Effects of emotions on employees’ performance
Human emotions can be categorized into two broad divisions. These are negative and
positive emotions (Zhun et al., 2018). Negative emotions impact negatively on the performance
of employees whereas positive emotions have positive implications that are crucial in enhancing
employees output (Chadi & Mertins, 2016). The positive emotions help in the achievement of
any organizations goals. Employees are human beings, and like others, their behaviors affect
their emotions and those of others. Their emotions and temperament affect their job
performance, decision making, and management output. Anger often leads to aggression towards
other employees and management and these always result in sadness which may lead to job
dissatisfaction. Emotion is a brief episode of synchronized dynamics in mind, and that is physical
in the body (Kunze, F. and Menges 2017). They directly affect an employee's performance. The
impacts may be on one's health emergencies and moods. It is therefore imperative to treat
negative emotions as a disease in the modern workplace. On the other hand, motivation help in
improving the employees’ performance and can be done through salary increment and
recognition of one’s effort.

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Conclusion
Conclusively, human resource development is an essential discipline in management that
plays a crucial role in improving the employees' performance and the relationship with the
management. There is hence a need to take relevant measures to ensure that leadership is
appropriate to the conditions of employees and hence employees need to be considered as the
main component in the achievement of the organization's mission, goals, and objectives. Apart
from educating the employees, and expecting experience from them in their areas of professional
and administrative positions, the organization should build their psychological capital as a way
of motivating and improving their performance.

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