关键词: 真实型领导, 真实型追随, 真实行为匹配, 心理资本

Abstract:     Few research has been conducted to discuss the relationship between authentic leadership and authentic followership while existing research mainly dominated by "leader-centered" or "follower-centered" viewpoints. In fact, at the beginning of the theoretical construction, authentic leader and authentic follower have been regarded as a whole, not only leaders but also followers have been emphasized to develop authenticity. When leaders and followers cherish each other and strive to achieve their own authenticity, they will establish fruitful partnerships, and the interaction between each other may emerge higher effectiveness. Although several studies have put authentic leadership and authentic followership into the same framework to discuss the effect of the authenticity from leaders to followers, and several scholars have examined the interaction effect between authentic leadership and authentic followership, there has been no research on the leader-follower fit. Therefore, can the authentic behavior in the leader-follower relationship achieve an ideal effect? The purpose of this paper is to examine how authentic behavior in the leader-follower relationship affects follower psychological capital from a dyadic perspective. Authentic leadership is defined as a leader′s behavior pattern: using and promoting positive psychological ability and creating moral atmosphere, leaders can develop greater self-awareness, balanced processing, internalized moral perspective and relational transparency, and promote followers′ positive development. The components can be explained as follows: (a) Self-awareness, which implies awareness of one′s own strengths and limitations, and how they impacts others; (b) Balanced processing, which means not distorting or ignoring information, and impartially analyzes the pertinent data before making any decisions; (c) Internalized moral perspective, which means a high standard for moral and ethical behavior in accordance with internalized values; and (d) Relational transparency, which means maintaining relations with collaborators based on explicitly and openly sharing information and display accurate thoughts and feelings. Construct of authentic followership is also comprised of four dimensions including self-awareness, balanced processing, internalized moral perspective and relational transparency.As we all know, authenticity is a degree variable. That is to say, neither complete authentic people, nor complete unauthentic. According to this, authentic behavior in the leader-follower relationship can be divided into four types: "high authentic leadership-high authentic followership", "low authentic leadership-low authentic followership", "high authentic leadership-low authentic followership", and "low authentic leadership-high authentic followership". Among them, the combination of "high-high" and "low-low" can be regarded as the consistent expression of authentic behaviors. The combination of "high-low" and "low-high" can be regarded as the inconsistency of authentic behaviors.Based on this, this study tries to propose a model, which takes leader-follower congruence/incongruence in authentic behavior as the predictive variable and follower psychological capital as the outcome variable, including leader-member exchange as a mediator and security attachment as a moderator. Psychological capital can be defined as: "An individual′s positive psychological state in the process of growth and development, including confidence (self-efficacy), hope, optimism and resilience. Studies have shown that leader′s psychological capital is the premise of the development of authentic leadership and helps promote authentic behavior. And follower′s psychological capital is the key composition and result of authentic leadership effectiveness, which is helpful to the performance of followers. In addition, psychological capital is regarded as a proximal outcome variable, because it is an important predictor of key attitudes, behaviors and performance in workplace.The data are collected from several different organizations using questionnaire survey responses from 419 leader-follower relationship in China. Polynomial regression combined with the response surface methodology is used to test the hypotheses. Four conclusions are drawn. First, leader-follower congruence in authentic behavior has a significant influence on follower psychological capital. And in the case of congruence, psychological capital is higher when leader authenticity and follower authenticity are aligned in "high-high" level than "low-low" level. In addition, leader-follower incongruence in authentic behavior also significantly affects follower psychological capital. And in the case of incongruence, there is a significant difference in two scenarios: compared with the "high-low" fit in authentic behavior, the "low-high" fit has a greater positive effect on psychological capital. Second, leader-follower congruence in authentic behavior has a significant influence on LMX. And in the case of congruence, LMX is higher when leader authenticity and follower authenticity are both high rather than low. In addition, leader-follower incongruence in authentic behavior also significantly affects LMX. And in the case of incongruence, there is no significant difference for the level of authenticity in two scenarios: "high-low" combination and "low-high" combination. Third, LMX partially mediates the leader-follower congruence/incongruence effect of authentic behavior on follower psychological capital. Finally, the moderating effect of security attachment on the relationship between leader-follower congruence/incongruence in authentic behavior and psychological capital is not significant. The possible reasons are as follows: Although secure attachment has a reinforcing moderation effect on the relationship between authentic leadership and psychological capital. But it has a weakening moderation effect on the relationship between authentic followership and psychological capital due to the crowding out effect of authenticity. These two opposite moderation effects may be against each other, which may lead to the moderation effect of secure attachment not obvious.This study provides a relatively balanced dual perspective to understand more relationships and outcomes in the authentic leadership field. And LMX as a possible path mechanism is proposed and tested to help better understanding how authentic behavior in the leader-follower relationship affects psychological capital. In addition, "behavioral fit" has not received enough attention in the existing "fit" research. This study complements the behavioral orientation of "fit" research by examining the effect of authentic behavior in the leader-follower relationship on psychological capital.From this study, we can conclude that the development of authentic followership is the same importance as the development of authentic leadership, which contributing to a deeper understanding of authentic leadership development. On the whole, authentic leadership is the starting point. However, how to develop authentic leadership is still the primary problem for organizations to think about and solve.

Key words: authentic leadership, authentic followership, authentic behavior fit, psychological capital