As argued by Gardner et al. (2005, p. 344), to act authentically, one must “know oneself” and act “in accordance with one’s true self.” Applied to the leadership context, in order to be perceived as an authentic leader, it is important for the leaders to display consistency between their values, beliefs, and actions beyond knowing themselves
(Walumbwa et al., 2008). However, in many circumstances, why are leaders who know what is the right thing to do still fail to take actions based on their true selves? I argue that the gap between knowing and acting one’s true self may be accounted for by the concept of moral potency (Hannah & Avolio, 2010). Although the extant literature has not yet examined any empirical link between moral potency and authentic leadership, this study suggests some theoretical logics why moral potency should be included in the nomological network of authentic leadership theory. In the present study, I draw on a social-cognitive notion of moral agency to explain the relationship between moral potency and authentic leadership.
Hannah and Avolio (2010) recently provided a new conceptualization titled moral potency, which they defined as “a psychological state marked by an experienced sense of ownership over the moral aspects of one’s environment, reinforced by efficacy beliefs in the capabilities to act to achieve moral purpose in that domain, and the courage to perform ethically in the face of adversity and persevere through challenges” (pp. 291-292). In other
words, moral potency represents an individual’s ethical psychological resources and includes three key components: moral ownership, moral efficacy, and moral courage. According to Hannah, Avolio, and May (2011), moral ownership refers to “the degree to which the leaders feel a sense of psychological responsibility over the ethical nature of their own actions, those of others around them, and their organization, or another collective” (p. 674). Moral efficacy is defined as “one’s belief in his or her capabilities to organize and mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, means and courses of action needed to attain moral performance, within a moral domain, while persisting in the face of moral adversity.” And building on previous definitions of moral courage, Hannah, Avolio, and Walumbwa (2011) conceptualized moral courage at work as “1) a malleable character strength, that 2) provides the requisite conation needed to commitment to personal moral principles, 3) under conditions where the actors is aware of the objective danger involved in supporting those principles, 4) that enables the willing endurance of that danger, 5) in order to act ethically or resist pressure to act unethically as required to maintain those principles.” In their seminal work, Hannah and Avolio (2010) found across two studies that these three components are distinct yet supporting of each other and create a higher order construct of moral potency. In Support of this
argument and finding, Osswald, Greitemeyer, Fischer, and Frey (2010) stated that “Before a person can act with moral courage, s/he has to perceive an incident as a situation of moral courage, s/he has to take responsibility and has to feel competent to act” (p. 98). Thus, I argue that feelings of responsibility and competence are required to support an authentic leader with courage to take actions upon his or her true values and beliefs and examine the relationship between authentic leadership and moral potency as a whole.
Scholars (e.g., Hannah & Avolio, 2010; Hannah, Avolio, & May, 2011) have proposed that people differ in the extent to which moral potency is experienced as being central to their self-identity. This difference implies that ethical psychological resources are more cognitively
available for some people than others. Bandura’s (1991) moral agency of social cognitive theory may explain why people maintain varying levels of moral potency. According to social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), the fundamental mechanism underlying the core features of human agency is people’s beliefs in their capacity to exercise some measure of control over their own functioning and life circumstances, meaning that self-regulatory mechanism govern the nature and quality of functioning. Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, and Pastorelli (1996) further pointed out, an agentic theory of morality specifies the mechanisms by which people come to live in accordance with their internalized moral standards. This means that people with high moral agency should be motivated to act in ways that are consistent with their moral standards. If moral potency indeed functions through self-regulatory mechanism whereby moral agency is exercised, the expected relationship between moral potency and authentic leadership is completely straightforward. This logic is also consistent with Avolio and Gardner (2005) who posited that self-regulatory is the underlying mechanism through which authentic leaders align their values with their intentions and actions and subsequently achieve self-consistency.
I reason that leaders with higher levels of moral potency should act in ways that are consistent with their moral standards, values and true self, which in turn should result in their being perceived as authentic leaders. That is, leaders who are high in moral potency are more likely to perceive and believe they have responsibilities, capabilities, and courage to take action based on their appropriate values, beliefs, and attitudes when faced with adversity and ethical challenge in their workplace. Subsequently, when followers perceive their leaders as acting in accordance with their values, beliefs, and attitudes, they tend to regard their leaders as authentic. As argued by Hannah and Avolio (2010, p. 293), “Leader displaying high levels of moral potency will be viewed by their followers as being more authentic in that they take ownership and have the courage and confidence to traverse the influence of group norms and
authority to take the action they deem appropriate to pursue based on their moral values and judgments.” This means that the leaders require sufficient levels of all three components to take consistent actions based on their values and beliefs. I therefore expect a positive relationship between moral potency and authentic leadership.
Hypothesis 1. Leader moral potency is positively related to authentic leadership.