Abstract

Summary
The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of authentic leadership style on the organizational citizenship behavior and job performance with the role of mediating of psychological capital among the staff of the sport and youth departments in Iran. The population of the study consists of 1500 people. Based on the Morgan's table, 307 employees of the Iran's sports and youth departments are selected. The psychological capital questionnaire (Nguyen et al., 2012), authentic leadership style (Walumbwa et al., 2008), Organ and Konovsky (1996) organizational citizenship behavior, and Paterson's (1992) job performance are used. The results obtained show that the psychological capital has a partial mediator role between the authentic leadership and the job performance (VAF = 0.625). Regarding the psychological capital between the genuine leadership and the citizenship behavior, there is a partial intermediary organization (VAF = 0.50). It is suggested that the managers of the youth departments of the country should increase the transparency of communication and a balanced processing of information among the organizational units, increase self-awareness, and improve the morality among the employees in order to improve the organizational productivity.
Introduction
Studies show that one of the ways to persuade the employees to engage in extracurricular behaviors and perform organizational citizenship duties is to strengthen the quality of organizational leadership with the employees, and provide solutions to the current leadership challenges and future leadership studies. Authentic leadership is a process that is based on positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which, in turn, leads to self-awareness, self-regulation, and emergence of positive behaviors in the leaders and followers. The authentic leaders enhance the employees' psychological resources and help them regenerate when faced with problems, shortcomings, and failures. The authentic leaders can improve the individual performance and organizational citizenship behaviors of the employees by utilizing the potential of psychological capital (optimism, self-efficacy, hope, and resiliency).
Methodology and Approach
This research work was a descriptive-correlation one, and it was done as a field study. The population of the study consisted of all the employees of the Iran's sports and youth departments (1500 people). Based on the Morgan's table, 306 persons were selected, and their questionnaires were analyzed. The psychological capital questionnaire (Nguyen et al., 2012), authentic leadership style (Walumbwa et al., 2008), Organ and Konovsky (1996) organizational citizenship behavior, and Paterson's (1992) job performance were used. The hypothesis test was performed using the partial least squares structural equation model.
Results and Conclusions
The results obtained show that the psychological capital has a partial mediator role between the authentic leadership and the job performance (VAF = 0.625), and 62.5% of the total effect of the original leadership on job performance is explained by the variable of psychological capital as well as the psychological capital between a genuine leadership and the citizenship behavior. There is a partial intermediary organization (VAF = 0.50), of which 50% of the total effect of the overall leadership on the organizational citizenship behavior is explained by the variable of psychological capital.
The managers of the sport and youth general offices in Iran, using the authentic leadership style along with the psychological capital, can improve the organizational citizenship behavior and the employees’ career performance. It is suggested that the managers of the youth departments of the country should increase the transparency of communication, the balanced processing of information among the organizational units, increase self-awareness, and improve the morality among the employees in order to improve the organizational productivity.

Keywords

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