Authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour: The mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of interpersonal trust

Abstract

Teachers’ voice behaviour plays a critical role in school reform by providing constructive suggestions to promote teaching, students’ learning and school management. This study investigates how and under what conditions principals’ authentic leadership contributes to teachers’ voice behaviour. Data collected from 982 teachers in 38 primary schools in mainland China were analysed using regression analysis and bootstrapping tests. The research tested a moderated mediation model of authentic leadership effects on teachers’ voice behaviour in which teacher psychological empowerment was included as the mediator and interpersonal trust as the moderator. The results affirmed the partial mediation model, finding significant direct and indirect effects of principals’ authentic leadership on teachers’ voice behaviour. Moreover, interpersonal trust positively moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and teachers’ voice behaviour, and also strengthened the whole mediating mechanism. When teachers perceived a higher level of interpersonal trust, the effects of principals’ authentic leadership on teachers’ voice behaviour were stronger than for counterparts who perceived a low level of interpersonal trust. Our discussion highlights the benefits of understanding the impact of authentic leadership on teachers’ voice behaviour in relation to interpersonal trust and their psychological empowerment and indicates how teachers can play a role in implementing the perceived situation practically.

Keywords

Authentic leadership teachers’ voice behaviour psychological empowerment interpersonal trust

Introduction

In today’s complex and rapidly evolving education environment, schools face increasing challenges in altering the status quo and speeding innovation and, inevitably, need teachers’ ideas and thoughts to keep up with changing content knowledge, pedagogy and trends in schooling. As one type of citizenship behaviour (Van Dyne and LePine, 1998), teachers’ voice behaviour refers to ‘discretionary communication of ideas, suggestions, concerns, or opinions about work-related issues with the intent to improve organisational or unit functioning’ (Morrison, 2011: 375). It serves as the catalyst for promoting school academic innovation, improving the efficiency of school decision-making and fostering teachers’ interpersonal relationships and wellbeing (Wang and Pan, 2014). Despite the importance of voice behaviour in the workplace, it seems to be displayed inadequately by employees, who tend to perceive the risks of speaking up to be greater than the benefits (Detert and Burris, 2007). Research indicates that organizational silence was found to be pervasive among primary school teachers in China (Jiang and Liu, 2008).

In the light of this, scholars and practitioners alike have sought to identify ways of promoting teachers’ voice behaviour. The existing related literature has consistently shown that leadership behaviour has a significant effect on employees’ voice behaviour both in business and educational settings. Detert and Burris (2007) and Liu et al. (2010) revealed the positive effects of transformational leadership on employees’ voice behaviour. Sağnak (2017) found a positive relationship between principals’ ethical leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour.

Compared with other leadership theories, authentic leadership might be a more substantial theory for explaining teachers’ voice behaviour in China’s school context. First, authentic leadership is different from other predominant leadership theories in educational leadership fields, that is, instructional leadership, transformational leadership and distributed leadership, which emphasize the skills and strategies that motivate teachers to be engaged and involved at school, and build a shared vision, and promote teachers’ professional development and students’ learning (Bowers et al., 2017; Gumus et al., 2018; Wang, 2018). Table 1 gives a brief outline of the above three leadership styles. Authentic leadership is more inward-oriented and focuses on inspiring followers’ authenticity and increasing their trust in the leader through the mechanism of positive role modelling, which, thus, reinforces authenticity in followers as well as in their interactions with their leaders (George and Sims, 2007; Luthans and Avolio, 2003). Second, authentic leadership theory is supposed to be a part of the Chinese view of leadership (Whitehead and Brown, 2011). The Chinese expect leaders to possess integrity and honesty, be true to themselves and others, match their words with deeds, and reveal a strong moral basis; this is the basis of authentic leadership (Feng, 2016; Novicevic et al., 2006).

Table 1.

General description of the different leadership styles of principals.

Leadership style	Main focus	Leadership behaviour description
Instructional leadership	Instruction	Leadership practices guiding the curriculum and instruction, and promoting student and teacher development (Hallinger, 2005)
Transformational leadership	Organization	Leadership practices seeking to bind together the leaders and teachers in a shared commitment to teaching and learning change (Hallinger, 2003)
Distributed leadership	Organization	Collaborative leadership practices focusing on the distribution of tasks and decision-making within the organization (Spillane, 2006)

Thus, it is important to explore how principals’ authentic leadership provides direct and indirect support for stimulating teachers’ voice behaviour. The present study tested an innovative moderated mediation model of authentic leadership effects on teachers’ voice behaviour in which teacher psychological empowerment was included as the mediator and interpersonal trust as the moderator (see Figure 1). Within the field of educational leadership research, exploring the proposed theoretical model may identify potentially powerful mediators and moderators – school-related variables – that contribute to increasing a teacher’s initiative to speak up and are amenable to leadership intervention.

Theoretical background and hypotheses

Authentic leadership

Authentic leadership is a new type of genuine and values-based form of leadership that acknowledges and accommodates the legitimate needs of individuals, groups, organizations, communities and cultures in an integrative way, rather than being preoccupied with organizational perspectives as is most of the leadership literature (Begley, 2001).George et al. (2007: 131–132) described authentic leaders as follows: ‘develop self-awareness from their experiences; act on that awareness by practicing their values, sometimes at substantial risk; balance their motivations with both internal and external drives; keep a strong support team around themselves; and, live integrated, grounded lives’. Emerging literature critiques the early authentic leadership theories as lacking some of the key elements of an effective leader. In particular, the separation between the leader and the process he/she enacts in order to influence his/her followers (leadership) should be considered. Crawford et al. (2020: 22) defined authentic leaders as being people who ‘influence and motivate followers to achieve goals through their sincerity and positive moral perspective, enabled through heightened awareness and balanced processing’.

In our article, we adopt the framework of authentic leadership that has informed most empirical studies conducted in educational leadership research. Authentic leaders are those who exhibit behaviours in four dimensions (Gardner et al., 2011; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach, 2014). The first dimension is self-awareness, which refers to an understanding of one’s strengths and weaknesses and their impact on others. Relational transparency is the second dimension, which refers to openly sharing information and presenting one’s authentic self to others. The third dimension is balanced processing and concerns leaders who show that they analyse all relevant data objectively before making decisions. The fourth dimension, internalized moral perspective, refers to leader behaviours that are guided by internal moral standards and values, rather than being based on external pressures such as those coming from peers, organizations and society. In brief, a principal who displays authentic leadership is ‘a school leader who aspires to understand his/herself and teachers and behave in accordance with his/her core values in order to steer the school towards its goals’ (Kulophas et al., 2015).

A growing body of research has identified principals’ authentic leadership as being related to a series of desirable outcomes of teachers’ multiple attitudes towards their job and multiple behaviours, for example, organizational citizenship and withdrawal behaviour (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach, 2014), psychological capital (Feng, 2016), work engagement (Kulophas et al., 2018; Wang and Bird, 2011), academic optimism (Kulophas et al., 2018), teacher trust (Fox et al., 2015), teachers’ intentions to return (Bird et al., 2012) and emotional intelligence (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016).

Authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour

Leadership behaviours have critical effects on followers’ voice behaviour, because they have legitimate control over or access to resources to make changes (Magee and Galinsky, 2008; Morrison and Milliken, 2000). We expect authentic leadership to have a positive effect on teachers’ voice behaviour. First, principals who are aware of their own strengths and weakness are more likely to acknowledge their ideas might be shortsighted and not comprehensive enough for effective decision-making, especially when encountering ambiguous, unprecedented or time-constrained problems. Such leaders are more willing to seek teachers’ opinions and may even appreciate ideas that challenge their deeply entrenched positions (Gardner et al., 2011). Second, authentic principals are transparent when dealing with challenges, that is, the process by which teachers know where their leaders stand on important issues, values and beliefs. This could boost teachers’ trust and respect and further inspire them to share information openly and express their true thoughts and feelings (Kernis, 2003). Third, voice behaviour may be associated with discomfort (Milliken et al., 2003), gaining a negative public image or label (Milliken et al., 2003), or damaging relationships with others and risking social capital (Adler and Kwon, 2002). Teachers may not have enough incentive to speak up if they do not have moral beliefs. Authentic leadership theory emphasizes the idea of leading as a role model (Avolio and Mhatre, 2011). By setting a personal example of high standards of integrity, authentic leaders can inspire followers’ integrity and authenticity. Teachers are more likely to focus on constructive change for the collective good when schools face challenges (Avolio and Gardner, 2005), and this acts as a key driving force behind voice (Morrison, 2011). Finally, balanced processing refers to leaders attaching importance to teachers’ viewpoints before making decisions.

Empirical findings have shown that authentic leadership has positive effects on employees’ voice behaviour. Hsiung (2012) surveyed 70 work groups in a real estate agent company in Taiwan and found that authentic leadership was positively associated with employees speaking up to the supervisor. Wong et al. (2010) also found authentic leadership related positively to nurses’ voice behaviour through a series of psychological processes in healthcare settings. Hence, this study proposes the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1: Authentic leadership is positively related to teachers’ voice behaviour.

Psychological empowerment as a mediator between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour

Authentic leadership and psychological empowerment

Mishra and Spreitzer (1998: 557) defined psychological empowerment as a ‘sense of control that employees perceive at the workplace, and the sense of control is manifested in four different dimensions: competence, impact, meaning and self-determination’. Competence refers to feelings of self-efficacy or personal mastery that one is capable of performing a task successfully (Bandura, 1986). Impact refers to the degree to which an individual’s work makes a difference in achieving the purpose of the task and the extent to which an individual believes he/she can influence organizational outcomes (Spreitzer, 1995). Meaning refers to an individual’s perception of his/her work as having value according to his/her standards and ideas. Self-determination refers to feelings of autonomy in making decisions about work.

We expect authentic leadership to have a positive effect on followers’ psychological empowerment. Authentic leaders understand followers’ needs for meaning in their work and the confidence that comes with being trusted to act with initiative and autonomy (Ilies et al., 2005). When leaders openly share transparent information with followers and seek their opinions before making decisions, followers are more likely to experience a stronger sense of impact at work (May et al., 2004). In addition, authentic leaders can enhance followers’ sense of self-efficacy by demonstrating positive aspects of the pathways or directions to pursue (Avolio et al., 2004).

A study conducted by Wong and Cummings (2009) showed that authentic leadership was significantly related to clinical staff members being psychologically empowered. Using 366 teacher samples from Israeli schools, Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach (2014) also found that principals’ authentic leadership could be a predictor of teachers’ psychological empowerment. This leads to our second hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2: Authentic leadership is positively related to teachers’ psychological empowerment.

Psychological empowerment and teachers’ voice behaviour

Voice behaviour tends to challenge the status quo in organizations and involve personal risks and costs, so an impetus is required to encourage this extra-role behaviour. Morrison (2011) proposed that three motives play a central role in the decision of whether to voice: the desire to benefit the organization or work unit; perceived safety of voice; and perceived efficacy of voice. In line with this, teachers who are psychologically empowered feel a sense of control over their work and have the desire to benefit their school and, thus, are more likely to propose suggestions for improving school operation (Spreitzer, 1995). Teachers who feel highly capable of performing their work (competence) and have influence over what happens at school (impact), are more likely to consider the probability that voice will be effective and, therefore, engage in voice behaviours (Frazier and Fainshmidt, 2012). McBride and Skau (1995) found that teachers who were empowered might be more motivated and seek to improve instruction. We thus propose the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis 3: Psychological empowerment is positively related to teachers’ voice behaviour.

Previous studies have demonstrated the role of psychological empowerment as a mediator of the relationships between leadership behaviour and work outcomes (e.g. Avolio et al., 2004; Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach, 2014). In our study, authentic leadership may be a predictor of teachers’ psychological empowerment, and teachers’ psychological empowerment could further encourage their voice behaviour. In addition, psychological empowerment may play a mediating role in the relationship between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour. Thus, we come to our next hypothesis.

Hypothesis 4: Psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour.

The moderating role of interpersonal trust

Proposing a suggestion for improvement may make colleagues feel threatened by information that challenges their authority, implies that projects are not working smoothly or requires a change in behaviour or practice (Detert and Burris, 2007; Morrison, 2011). In this regard, interpersonal trust, which refers to ‘the extent to which a teacher is confident in, and willing to act on the basis of the words, actions, and decisions of another’ (McAllister, 1995: 25), might play an important role in voice.

As an enabling process, psychological empowerment depends on contextual factors such as employees’ interactions with their colleagues (Thomas and Velthouse, 1990). In a school with a high level of interpersonal trust, teachers are more likely to suspend uncertainty about and vulnerability in relation to their colleagues (De Jong and Elfring, 2010), and feel safe and comfortable about the ways in which colleagues will respond to their voice, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will actually express their opinions and ideas about workplace issues, actions of others or needed changes within schools. Even if an individual’s opinion results in the position change of other members, other teachers can understand the intention behind this is to enhance school operation. On the contrary, if they have a low level of trust in their colleagues, teachers may have concerns in relation to safety, such as damaging their credibility, upsetting or embarrassing someone else, or fear of retaliation, which may suppress their willingness to engage in voice behaviour. Whereas a high level of psychological empowerment could encourage teachers to make constructive suggestions, interpersonal trust will facilitate or suppress their willingness to express opinions. Dirks (1999) found that interpersonal trust moderated the relationship between motivation and group performance. Hence, we propose our next hypothesis.

Hypothesis 5: Interpersonal trust moderates the relationship between teachers’ psychological empowerment and voice behaviour, creating a stronger relationship when the level of interpersonal trust is high than when it is low.

In sum, the above hypotheses specify a moderated mediation model (Preacher et al., 2007) shown in Figure 1, in which authentic leadership is positively related to teachers’ voice behaviour through psychological empowerment, with this indirect linkage depending on the level of interpersonal trust. Because we predict strong (weak) linkages between teachers’ psychological empowerment and voice behaviour when the level of interpersonal trust is high (low), our last hypothesis is as follows.

Hypothesis 6: Interpersonal trust moderates the indirect relationships between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour (through psychological empowerment). Specifically, this mediating effect is relatively strong for teachers with a high level of interpersonal trust and relatively weak for teachers with a low level of interpersonal trust.

Method

Data collection

The present study was conducted in one city in China and 38 primary schools were selected as a stratified random sample. Every teacher answered an electronic questionnaire on the website arising from a teacher conference held by the education bureau. The questionnaire included the four main variables and some demographic information. In total, 1010 teachers from 38 primary schools participated in our survey, among which 982 valid responses were collected, representing a response rate of 97.23%.

Most of the respondents (71.9%) were female and 28.1% were male. The average age of the teachers was 38.18 years. Of the teachers, 37.6% have a three-year college degree and 55.8% have a bachelor’s degree or above. The mean number of years they had worked in their current school was 10.5.

Measures

Five-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) were used to measure authentic leadership, teachers’ voice behaviour and psychological empowerment, whereas interpersonal trust was measured on a 7-point scale between1 (strongly disagree) and 7 (strongly agree).

Authentic leadership

To determine the teachers’ perspectives with regard to authentic leadership, we used an authentic leadership 16-item questionnaire that was adopted by Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach (2014) in educational settings. The items contain four dimensions: (a) self-awareness (four items); (b) relational transparency (five items); (c) internalized moral perspective (four items); and (d) balanced processing (three items). Sample items include ‘My principal admits to mistakes when they are made’ (relational transparency) and ‘My principal demonstrates beliefs that are consistent with his/her actions’ (internal moral perspective). To test the construct validity of the four-factor authentic leadership model, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We used the following fit indices as recommended by Wen et al. (2004): chi-square model fit criterion (χ²); comparative fit index (CFI >= 0.90); standardized root mean square residual (SRMR <= 0.08); and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA <= 0.08). The CFA results indicated a good fit of the four-factor structure: χ² = 752.41, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.02. The coefficient alpha for the current study was 0.98.

Teachers’ voice behaviour

A ten-item scale adapted from Liang et al., (2012) was used to measure teachers’ voice behaviour. This scale contains two dimensions, promotive and prohibitive voice, and each dimension has five items. In view of the school settings, we made some changes. Sample items include ‘Raise suggestions to improve the school’s working procedure’ (promotive voice) and ‘Speak up honestly with problems that might cause serious loss to the school, even when/though dissenting opinions exist’ (prohibitive voice). The CFA results of the two-factor teachers’ voice behaviour questionnaire indicated a good fit of the data: χ² = 253.19, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.03. The coefficient alpha for the current study was 0.96.

Psychological empowerment

We used Spreitzer’s (1995) 12-item psychological empowerment questionnaire to measure teachers’ psychological empowerment. The scale incorporates the dimensions of competence, meaning, self-determination and impact, with each dimension consisting of three items. Sample items include ‘I am confident about my ability to do my job’ (competence) and ‘The work I do is very important to me’ (meaning). The CFA results of the four-factor teachers’ voice behaviour questionnaire indicated a good fit of the data: χ² = 277.34, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.05. The coefficient alpha for the current study was 0.92.

Interpersonal trust

We measured teachers’ interpersonal trust using the 11 items developed by McAllister (1995). Sample items include ‘I can talk freely to my colleagues about difficulties I am having at work and know that (s)he will want to listen’ (affect-based trust) and ‘My colleagues approach their job with professionalism and dedication’ (cognition-based trust). The CFA results of the two-factor teachers’ voice behaviour questionnaire indicated a good fit of the data: χ² = 291.65, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.98, SRMR = 0.02. The coefficient alpha for the current study was 0.84.

Control variables

Previous research shows that demographic attributes may affect employees’ voice behaviours (Detert and Burris, 2007; Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001). For instance, employees with higher levels of education may have more ideas in general to voice (e.g. Frese et al., 1999), and those who have been in their job for longer may be more comfortable about speaking up (e.g. Stamper and Van Dyne, 2001). Consequently, a set of teachers’ demographic variables including gender, age, education and school tenure was analysed in our model.

Common method biases test

In order to reduce the risk of common method biases, we tried our best to protect respondent anonymity and reduce evaluation apprehension, but the reliance on teacher self-reported measures in this study raises a concern about common method biases (Podsakoff et al., 2003). According to Podsakoff et al.’s (2003) suggestion, we used the method of controlling for the effects of a single unmeasured latent method factor to conduct the common method biases test. When controlling for the common method latent factor, the model fit indices do not become significantly better (Δχ² = 48.863, Δdf= 12, Δχ²/Δdf= 4.07). Therefore, common method biases do not have a serious confounding influence on empirical results in this study.

Results

Confirmatory factor analysis

Table 2 presents the CFA results of the proposed model. As shown in Table 2, the results of the proposed four-factor structure (authentic leadership, psychological empowerment, interpersonal trust and teachers’ voice behaviour) demonstrated good fit with the data (χ²/df = 5.73, RMSEA = 0.07, NNFI = 0.97, CFI = 0.98, GFI = 0.96), which was much better than the five alternative models. The fit indices support the proposed four-factor model, providing evidence for the construct distinction between authentic leadership, psychological empowerment, interpersonal trust and teachers’ voice behaviour.

Table 2.

Comparison of measurement models.

Model	χ²	df	Δχ²	RMSEA	NNFI	CFI	GFI
Baseline	252.17	44	—	0.07	0.97	0.98	0.96
Model 1	720.05	47	467.88	0.12	0.91	0.94	0.88
Model 2	745.67	47	493.50	0.12	0.91	0.93	0.89
Model 3	1043.89	47	791.72	0.15	0.87	0.90	0.87
Model 4	1416.16	49	1163.99	0.17	0.82	0.87	0.80
Model 5	1936.87	50	1684.70	0.11	0.76	0.82	0.74

df: degree of freedom; RMSEA: root mean square error of approximation; NNFI: non-normed fit index; CFI: comparative fit index; GFI: goodness-of-fit index.

Baseline: four factors.

Model 1: three factors. Authentic leadership and psychological empowerment were combined into one factor.

Model 2: three factors. Psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust were combined into one factor.

Model 3: three factors. Authentic leadership and interpersonal trust were combined into one factor.

Model 4: two factors. Authentic leadership, psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust were combined into one factor.

Model 5: one factor. Four variables were combined into one factor.

Hypotheses testing

Table 3 presents the means and standard deviations for all study variables, as well as the intercorrelations between them. Most of the coefficients are moderate in magnitude and well below their reliabilities, providing supportive evidence for their discriminant validity. As shown in Table 3, authentic leadership is significantly and positively correlated with psychological empowerment (0.64, p < 0.001) and teachers’ voice behaviour (0.68, p < 0.001), and psychological empowerment is significantly correlated with teachers’ voice behaviour (0.72, p < 0.001). Interpersonal trust is significantly and positively correlated with authentic leadership (0.59, p < 0.001), psychological empowerment (0.57, p < 0.001) and teachers’ voice behaviour (0.55, p < 0.001).

Table 3.

Means, standard deviations and correlations (n = 982).

Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Gender	1.72	0.45	–
2. Age	38.18	9.85	-0.34***	–
3. Education	2.50	0.63	0.13***	-0.36***	–
4. Tenure	10.47	9.54	-0.19***	0.62***	-0.18***	–
5. AL	3.99	0.89	0.02	-0.09**	-0.06	-0.10**	(0.98)
6. PE	3.79	0.69	-0.04	0.06*	-0.05	0.05	0.64***	(0.92)
7. IT	5.75	1.00	0.06	-0.06	-0.03	-0.05	0.59***	0.57***	(0.84)
8. Voice	3.73	0.90	-0.10**	0.05	-0.10**	0.01	0.68***	0.72***	0.55***	(0.96)

M: mean; SD: standard deviation; AL: authentic leadership; PE: psychological empowerment; IT: interpersonal trust; Voice: teachers’ voice behaviour.

n = 982. Reliability coefficients for the scales are in parentheses along the diagonal.

* p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

First, we tested hypotheses 1, 2, 3 and 5 using multiple regression. Table 4 summarizes the results of the regression analysis. Model 2 in Table 4 indicates that authentic leadership was significantly and positively correlated with psychological empowerment (β = 0.51, p < 0.001), showing support for Hypothesis 2. Model 4 in Table 4 with teachers’ voice behaviour as the dependent variable, indicates that authentic leadership was significantly and positively correlated with teachers’ voice behaviour (β = 0.70, p < 0.001), showing support for Hypothesis 1. Model 5 in Table 4 indicates that psychological empowerment was significantly and positively correlated with teachers’ voice behaviour (β = 0.77, p < 0.001), showing support for Hypothesis 3. To test Hypothesis 5, when undertaking the moderation analysis, we centred the variables in the interaction term at the mean (Aiken and West, 1991). Model 6 in Table 4 indicates the coefficient of the interaction term was significant. In addition, the results of Figure 2 and a simple slope test illustrated that teachers with high interpersonal trust scores (one standard deviation above the mean) exhibited a stronger relationship between psychological empowerment and voice behaviour (β = 0.83, p < 0.001) than teachers with low interpersonal trust scores (one standard deviation below the mean,β = 0.72, p < 0.001), lending support to Hypothesis 5.

Table 4.

Results of regression.

Variable	PE		Teachers’ voice behaviour
Variable	Model l	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
Control variables
Gender_Female	-0.04	-0.03	-0.18**	-0.17***	-0.17***	-0.17***
Age	0.002	0.007**	-0.001	0.005	-0.001	-0.001
Education	-0.03	0.04	-0.13**	-0.03	-0.09**	-0.09**
School tenure	0.001	0.004	-0.002	0.002	-0.002	-0.002
Main effect
Authentic leadership		0.51***		0.70***
		(26.85)		(29.78)
PE					0.77***	0.77***
					(22.53)	(22.64)
Interpersonal trust					0.19***	0.21***
					(7.83)	(8.33)
Moderating effect
Interpersonal trust*PE^a						0.06**(2.78)
R²	0.005	0.43	0.02	0.49	0.55	0.56
Adjusted R²	0.001	0.43	0.01	0.48	0.55	0.55

PE: psychological empowerment.

n = 982. Non-standardized coefficients are reported.

^aThe interaction between interpersonal trust and PE.

* p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Second, we used a bootstrapping approach with the aid of a SPSS macro developed by Preacher et al. (2007) to test Hypothesis 4. Samples are usually not normally distributed in practice; bootstrapping is a non-parametric method for indirect effects through repeated sampling without the assumption of normality of the sampling distribution. We ran the indirect macro with 5000 bootstrapped re-samples by using authentic leadership as the independent variable, psychological empowerment as the mediator and gender, age, education and school tenure as covariates. The results show that the relationship between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour was significantly mediated by psychological empowerment (p < 0.001, bias-corrected CI=(0.26, 0.35)), and the indirect effect was 0.31. Specifically, both the path from authentic leadership to psychological empowerment (0.51, p < 0.001), and the total effect of authentic leadership on teachers’ voice behaviour (0.39, p < 0.001) were significant. These results indicate that psychological empowerment mediated the relationship between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour. Thus, Hypothesis 4 is supported.

Finally, to test moderated mediation, we followed Edwards and Lambert’s (2007) bootstrapping method, exploring how the mediating effects of psychological empowerment (between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour) vary across levels of interpersonal trust. The procedure clarifies how the moderator variable (interpersonal trust) influences the paths that constitute the direct (between authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour), indirect (through psychological empowerment) and total effects of mediated models, which can provide comprehensive and accurate model estimation (Edwards and Lambert, 2007). The results in Table 5 show that the indirect effect was 0.28 (p < 0.001) at a high level of interpersonal trust, 0.16 (p < 0.001) at a low level of interpersonal trust and the difference was significant (0.28-0.16 = 0.12, p < 0.001). Thus, the results suggest that the indirect effect of authentic leadership on teachers’ voice behaviour is stronger when the level of interpersonal trust is greater. Thus, Hypothesis 6 is supported. In Table 5, differences in the effects for low and high levels of interpersonal trust indicate that the second stage of the indirect effect was stronger for a high level of interpersonal trust (0.70-0.48 = 0.22, p < 0.001), which further lends support to Hypothesis 5.

Table 5.

Test of moderated mediation.

Interpersonal trust	AL(X) → PE(M) → Teachers’ voice behaviour(Y)
Interpersonal trust	Firststage	Secondstage	Direct effect	Indirect effect	Totaleffect
Low (one standard deviation below the mean)	0.34***	0.48***	0.39***	0.16***	0.55***
High (one standard deviation above the mean)	0.39***	0.70***	0.28***	0.28***	0.56***
Differences	0.05	0.22***	-0.11	0.12***	0.01

AL: authentic leadership; PE: psychological empowerment; X: independent variable; M: mediating variable; Y: dependent variable.

n=982. Non-standardized coefficients are reported. Bootstrap sample is 1000.

*p< 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Discussion

Duignan (2014) advocated that researchers investigate the ways in which authentic leadership can have a greater impact on sustained high-quality performance in schools, and the moderating variables at play. Responding to this call, this study examined the role that teachers’ psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust played in the relationship between principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour in a school context using an integrative moderated mediation model. The findings of this study in China could add evidence to the broader international research that increasingly highlights the role of principals’ leadership in initiating the productive involvement of teachers in school improvement (Murphy, 2013; Wahlstrom and Louis, 2008).

Theoretical implications

Harris (2004) suggested that although much attention has been paid to leadership and its effect on student achievement, we still need to know more about the characteristics of effective leadership practices. Authentic leadership provides a genuine kind of leadership that can be hopeful, open-ended and visionary, and offers creative responses to social circumstances (Begley, 2001). Chinese culture is a typical kind of eastern culture influenced by Confucian doctrine (Shengnan and Hallinger, 2020). According to Confucian values, a school leader is expected to be a superior person (junzi) who values sincerity, must be authentic in his/her thoughts and reveals deep values in outward words and actions (Feng, 2016). These viewpoints neatly parallel authentic leadership theory, which emphasizes sincerity, relational transparency and high moral standards. The results of the current study indicate that principals’ authentic leadership is influential in promoting teachers’ voice behaviour. This offers more empirical insights into understanding the positive effect of principals’ authentic leadership in China’s education context, and further generalizes the current findings with regard to authentic leadership in the context of western cultures as compared with eastern cultural contexts (Avolio and Mhatre, 2011).

When teachers perceive school principals to be demonstrating authentic leadership, it could positively influence teachers’ voice behaviour, which is a kind of extra-role behaviour (Van Dyne et al., 1995); teachers highlight the problems in the organization, and put forward their views and suggestions for organizational improvement. Although engaging in voice behaviour could involve risks in relation to their image, interpersonal relationships or career development (Krefting and Powers, 1998), our findings suggest that principals’ authentic leadership has a significantly positive effect on teachers’ voice behaviour. This conclusion is consistent with previous research in business settings (Hsiung, 2012). Moreover, in line with previous studies, we found that male teachers were more likely to engage in voice behaviour than female teachers (e.g. Detert and Burris, 2007; LePine and Van Dyne, 1998). Eagly et al. (2004) proposed that men tend to be more autonomous in their decision-making, which may provide a possible explanation for this finding. We also note that teachers with a higher level of education are less likely to express their ideas, whereas Frese et al. (1999) found that those with a higher level of education may have more ideas in general to voice. The possible explanation might be that teachers with a higher level of education in our sample were mostly young (the correlation coefficient between education and age is -0.36, p < 0.001) with shorter school tenures (the correlation coefficient between education and school tenure is -0.18, p < 0.001). As such, they need to know more about school operation and make sure the context is safe.

As knowledge workers and autonomous teaching professionals (Bogler and Somech, 2004; Tschannen-Moran, 2009), teachers would benefit greatly from having greater psychological empowerment. In the current study, psychological empowerment emerged as a potentially important explanatory mechanism linking principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour. This finding is in line with previous suggestions (Ilies et al., 2005) that empowerment is an important motivational mechanism through which authentic leaders may affect followers’ work-related outcomes. It also provides empirical evidence for the integrative framework in a school context.

As a key foundation for constructive associations within school organizations (Carnoy and Hannaway, 1996), trust has a great influence on school effectiveness (Byrk and Schneider, 2002; Tarter, 1995). This study integrates leadership theory and trust theory by examining the moderating effect of interpersonal trust on the relationship between principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour. In particular, the results show that the moderated relationship between principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour is due to principals’ authentic leadership contributing to teachers’ psychological empowerment, and teachers’ psychological empowerment being more related to voice behaviour with high rather than low levels of interpersonal trust. By formulating a moderated mediation model, this study deepens our understanding of the applicable limits of principals’ authentic leadership in relation to various individual teachers.

Practical implications

China has been widely acknowledged as a relatively high-power distance culture, which shapes social interactions in the school context (Hofstede, 2010; Tang et al., 2014; Walker and Qian, 2015). In high-power distance societies, ‘teachers tend to accept principals’ directives without raising questions or expressing open disagreement’ (Shengnan and Hallinger, 2020: 2). This culture characteristic poses a challenge for principals who hope to inspire teachers to express their ideas and suggestions. By examining the internal mechanism that links principals’ authentic leadership to teachers’ voice, this study reveals a way of increasing opinion expression by teachers.

Voice behaviour can be treated as a manifestation of authenticity (Hsiung, 2012). To initiate teachers’ sincerity, principals should promote high standards of authentic leadership and act as role models. Avolio and colleagues (e.g. Avolio and Luthans, 2006; Avolio and Mhatre, 2011) have provided specific guidelines for developing authentic leadership. Sidani and Rowe (2018) argued that authentic leadership development should be coupled with follower development. Specifically, followers should be trained to give appropriate and accurate feedback by openly expressing their own values; this interaction process could reinforce the formation and development of authenticity in each other (Avolio and Mhatre, 2011). Future training interventions should include both principals and teachers in the development process.

Psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust could be the driving forces that inspire teachers’ enthusiasm and conscientiousness for engaging in voice behaviour. With this in mind, principals should pay attention to cultivating teachers’ psychological empowerment, including expressing confidence in their teachers, setting inspirational and attainable goals, proving opportunities for them to participate in decision-making, promoting autonomy in their professional work, giving instructions for performing their roles and sharing needed information (Spreitzer, 1995). Psychologically empowered teachers will feel more positive and competent in expressing their opinions with regard to improving school efficiency. Moreover, because interpersonal trust could positively moderate the indirect relationship between principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour, it would have more of an impact if authentic principals expended more effort on developing followers with positive interpersonal trust. Potential measures include establishing trustworthy relationships among teachers through frequent communications, balancing multisource information and rewarding high-performing teachers who are trustworthy (Abrams et al., 2003). In this case, teachers may feel safer and more productive in relation to exercising initiative with respect to voice behaviour.

Limitations and future research

This study has some limitations that should be noted. First, given the study’s cross-sectional design, we cannot substantiate causal relationships between, for example, authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour, because it is impossible to infer the nature of a causal relationship between variables from a statistical correlation (Trochim and Donnelly, 2005). Conceivably, the causal order could be reversed; teachers’ perceptions of authentic leadership are either an antecedent or outcome of teachers’ voice behaviour. Teachers with a positive intent to engage in voice behaviour may also push principals to be more authentic with teachers. Future research would benefit from (quasi-) experimental or longitudinal study designs to provide more conclusive results with regard to the causal links between the variables mentioned in this study. Second, although using teacher self-reported performance measures is in line with previous research (e.g. Heidemeier and Moser, 2009), such ratings may suffer from self-serving biases and socially desirable responding. Using multiple data sources for focal variables would be helpful to achieve a more objective conclusion. Further studies could use a sample of principals to conduct paired sample surveys to explore the relationships between principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ psychological empowerment in different leader–follower dyads in situational contexts. Finally, the current study was conducted in China’s school setting. Owusu-Bempah et al. (2014) proposed that follower perceptions of authentic leadership are heavily dependent on their underlying cultures. Future research needs to be conducted in different organizational and societal cultures in order to cross-validate and generalize the findings. Specifically, the focus of this study was primary schools. Primary schools are, generally, much smaller than lower and upper secondary schools and, therefore, have more advantage over a large school, particularly with regard to teachers’ perceptions of interpersonal relationships (Bryk and Schneider, 2003). Thus, further analyses should assess whether and how school size plays a role in developing teachers’ psychological empowerment and interpersonal trust, especially with regard to testing the moderated mediating role of these important variables in relation to principals’ authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sen Zhang

Alex J Bowers

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