How Leaders’ Experienced Authenticity Influences Team Performance: A Behavioral Integrity Lens

Brenda Nguyen; Hannes Leroy; Kristin Cullen-Lester; Carol Gill

doi:10.1177/15480518251412068

How Leaders’ Experienced Authenticity Influences Team Performance: A Behavioral Integrity Lens

Brenda Nguyen
, Hannes Leroy
, Kristin Cullen-Lester
, Carol Gill^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of People and Organisations

University of Lethbridge
University of Mississippi
University of Melbourne

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

6 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

While past work has demonstrated that experienced authenticity is important for well-being, the interpersonal consequences of perceiving oneself as authentic are less well-understood. This paper fills this gap in the literature using theory and research on behavioral integrity, highlighting the perceptual filters that exist when conveying one's authenticity to others and thus the importance of political skill to help counter misinterpretations of one's authenticity. We tested our hypothesized model in a time-lagged, multi-source survey study of 78 teams. Our results demonstrated that leaders’ experienced authenticity was negatively related to followers’ perception of leader behavioral integrity unless the leader was politically skilled. Additionally, behavioral integrity was a key mechanism in our moderated-mediation model explaining why leader authenticity and political skill combine to predict team performance.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	168-184
Number of pages	17
Journal	Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies
Volume	33
Issue number	2
Early online date	16 Jan 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/15480518251412068
Publication status	Published - May 2026

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Authors 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Access to Document

10.1177/15480518251412068Licence: CC BY

How Leaders’ Experienced AuthenticityFinal published version, 686 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{1465e994e0254ba09c397f516b3e20a7,

title = "How Leaders{\textquoteright} Experienced Authenticity Influences Team Performance: A Behavioral Integrity Lens",

abstract = "While past work has demonstrated that experienced authenticity is important for well-being, the interpersonal consequences of perceiving oneself as authentic are less well-understood. This paper fills this gap in the literature using theory and research on behavioral integrity, highlighting the perceptual filters that exist when conveying one's authenticity to others and thus the importance of political skill to help counter misinterpretations of one's authenticity. We tested our hypothesized model in a time-lagged, multi-source survey study of 78 teams. Our results demonstrated that leaders{\textquoteright} experienced authenticity was negatively related to followers{\textquoteright} perception of leader behavioral integrity unless the leader was politically skilled. Additionally, behavioral integrity was a key mechanism in our moderated-mediation model explaining why leader authenticity and political skill combine to predict team performance.",

author = "Brenda Nguyen and Hannes Leroy and Kristin Cullen-Lester and Carol Gill",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Authors 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).",

year = "2026",

month = may,

doi = "10.1177/15480518251412068",

language = "English",

volume = "33",

pages = "168--184",

journal = "Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies",

issn = "1548-0518",

publisher = "SAGE Publications",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - How Leaders’ Experienced Authenticity Influences Team Performance

T2 - A Behavioral Integrity Lens

AU - Nguyen, Brenda

AU - Leroy, Hannes

AU - Cullen-Lester, Kristin

AU - Gill, Carol

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Authors 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

PY - 2026/5

Y1 - 2026/5

N2 - While past work has demonstrated that experienced authenticity is important for well-being, the interpersonal consequences of perceiving oneself as authentic are less well-understood. This paper fills this gap in the literature using theory and research on behavioral integrity, highlighting the perceptual filters that exist when conveying one's authenticity to others and thus the importance of political skill to help counter misinterpretations of one's authenticity. We tested our hypothesized model in a time-lagged, multi-source survey study of 78 teams. Our results demonstrated that leaders’ experienced authenticity was negatively related to followers’ perception of leader behavioral integrity unless the leader was politically skilled. Additionally, behavioral integrity was a key mechanism in our moderated-mediation model explaining why leader authenticity and political skill combine to predict team performance.

AB - While past work has demonstrated that experienced authenticity is important for well-being, the interpersonal consequences of perceiving oneself as authentic are less well-understood. This paper fills this gap in the literature using theory and research on behavioral integrity, highlighting the perceptual filters that exist when conveying one's authenticity to others and thus the importance of political skill to help counter misinterpretations of one's authenticity. We tested our hypothesized model in a time-lagged, multi-source survey study of 78 teams. Our results demonstrated that leaders’ experienced authenticity was negatively related to followers’ perception of leader behavioral integrity unless the leader was politically skilled. Additionally, behavioral integrity was a key mechanism in our moderated-mediation model explaining why leader authenticity and political skill combine to predict team performance.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105027512477

U2 - 10.1177/15480518251412068

DO - 10.1177/15480518251412068

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105027512477

SN - 1548-0518

VL - 33

SP - 168

EP - 184

JO - Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies

JF - Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies

IS - 2

ER -

How Leaders’ Experienced Authenticity Influences Team Performance: A Behavioral Integrity Lens

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this