Relationship between authentic leadership, transformational leadership and innovative work behavior: mediating role of innovation climate

Objectives. This study aimed to demonstrate the effect of transformational and authentic leadership characteristics of healthcare managers on employees' innovative work behavior and the mediating role of innovation climate. Methods. The study was conducted in 19 hospitals in Turkey and 263 managers participated. The data were collected using the transformational leadership questionnaire, the authentic leadership questionnaire, the innovative climate assessment tool and the innovative work behavior scale. Path analysis was performed to demonstrate the relationship between the variables. Results. When transformational and authentic leadership were put into the model separately through innovation climate, transformational leadership had an effect of 0.39 units (0.22 units direct, 0.17 units indirect) and authentic leadership had a 0.44-unit effect (0.29 units direct, 0.15 units indirect) on innovative work behavior. When transformational and authentic leadership were put together in the model, the total (direct and indirect) effect of them increased to 0.52 units. In this case, the effect of authentic leadership characteristics of health managers on innovative work behavior of their followers (0.42 units) was greater than the effect of transformational leadership characteristics (0.10 units). Conclusions. Although both types of leadership affect innovative work behavior, authentic leadership was more effective than transformational leadership.