Authentic leadership and organisational citizenship behaviour in the public health care sector: The role of workplace trust

Abstract

Research on leadership is of particular importance in the South African public health care sector as the Department of Health perceives leadership as a critical component required to address the challenges that this sector is currently being faced with. In addition, the demanding work environment, perceptions of quality health care, and other challenges that the public health care sector are currently facing might lead to a reduction of individuals utilising these services. Similar to the vital role that leadership plays in addressing these challenges, going the "extra mile" can also aid in the improvement of one of the Department of Health's key performance areas, namely improving "health system effectiveness". Leadership may directly influence the extent to which employees are prepared to engage in extra-role behaviours, known as organisational citizenship behaviour, but it may also influence this behaviour through workplace trust. As trust in leadership is at an all-time low, it is important to investigate the role of workplace trust in its three referents (organisation, supervisor, and co-workers) and whether this might be what is needed to encourage employees to engage in extra-role behaviours. The main objective of this study was to determine whether employees' perceptions of their leaders being authentic influences workplace trust as well as organisational citizenship behaviour. Additional objectives were to determine whether workplace trust indirectly affects the relationship between authentic leadership and organisational citizenship behaviour; also to determine if there is a difference in the strength of these indirect effects in terms of trust in its three different referents. A final objective was to make recommendations for future research and practice. In this study, a quantitative survey design was utilised, and the research was cross-sectional in nature. An exploratory as well as descriptive approach was used. The Authentic Leadership Inventory (ALI), Workplace Trust Survey (WTS), and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Scale (OCBS) were used to collect data. A biographical questionnaire was also utilised to collect demographic information about the participants. The sample consisted of 633 employees in the public health care sector. The data was analysed by means of a two-step model generating approach of structural equation modelling (SEM). The results indicate that authentic leadership is a significant predictor of workplace trust in its three referents. However, only trust in the organisation and trust in co-workers were significant predictors of organisational citizenship behaviour. Authentic leadership and trust in the immediate supervisor did not play a significant role in influencing employees' levels of organisational citizenship behaviour. As a result, only trust in the organisation and trust in the co-worker had a significant indirect influence on the relationship between authentic leadership and organisational citizenship behaviour. Trust in the organisation, however, had the strongest effect on this relationship. The findings highlight the importance of authentic leadership and trust in the organisation as well as trust in co-workers as contributors to organisational citizenship behaviour.