Authentic Leadership and Its Relationship to Ministerial Effectiveness

Abstract

Authentic leadership theory has generated much debate in light of the corporate world's renewed prerequisite for authenticity (Clapp-Smith, Vogelgesang, & Avey, 2009; George, 2003). This study examined the authentic leadership of clergy and discovered it is positively correlated with ministerial effectiveness. This relationship may provide a better understanding about how pastors can build effective, transparent, and trusting relationships with their laity. Leadership is no longer considered an individual characteristic, but is illustrated through shared models involving leaders and followers (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2009; Klenke, 2007). Today's pastor must excel with biblical texts as well as social contexts, transparently relating with people in order to capably steer through complex relationships. (Jones & Armstrong, 2006, p. 30). This study uniquely classifies authentic leadership theory, distinguishing it from transformational and ethical leadership theories. Further, it coherently differentiates the intrapersonal dimension from the interpersonal dimension. The intrapersonal dimension unveils how a person's life experiences, motivations, and worldview shape one's moral reasoning. The interpersonal dimension stresses the value of integrity, character and psychological capital as well as the ability to outwardly convey and genuinely model trust and transparency. A survey was conducted of Lutheran pastors of the Indiana District of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. There were 58 pastors and 164 lay leaders that responded to the survey. Each pastor and lay leader completed the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) by Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, and Peterson (2008) and the Ministerial Effectiveness Inventory (MEI) developed by Majovski (1982). A significant relationship was found between the ALQ and MEI scores. The statistical data are disclosed, the hypotheses are tested, the findings are shared, and suggestions for further research are postulated.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 24 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.