| This research study examined the relationship between authentic leadership behavior and job satisfaction from the employee's perspective. The participants were attendees of an annual diversity conference, faculty, staff, and administration from a local community college district, and participants from various other industries and occupations. The employees rated their perception of their supervisor's authentic leadership behavior and the employees rated their own job satisfaction. A final sample of 269 participants completed three instruments: the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ), which measures authentic leadership behavior, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MS Q), which measures job satisfaction, and a brief demographic questionnaire created by the researcher. Multiple regression analysis was used to explore the existence of relationships between the independent and dependent variables. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to determine the existence of differences between groups for those categorical variables found to be significant predictors of job satisfaction in the multiple regressions. The results of this research revealed that demographic variables of age, gender, tenure, occupation, job title, and number of children under the age of eighteen living at home, did not have a statistically significant influence on job satisfaction. The results of this study found that three of the four components of authentic leadership were statistically significant predictors of job satisfaction. An unexpected finding of the study was that leader's race was a predictor of follower's extrinsic and general job satisfaction. A discussion of the study's implications and recommendations for future research are also included. |
