The effect of authentic leadership on employee trust and employee engagement

In this study we examined the effect of authentic leadership on employee engagement through employee trust. We collected data from 386 employees in the top 1,000 manufacturing companies and the top 500 service companies in Taiwan. Hierarchical multiple regression was employed to test the hypotheses. The results showed that both supervisors’ consistency between words and actions as well as their moral perceptions are positively related to employee engagement, while only supervisors’ consistency between words and actions is positively related to employee trust. Moreover, employee trust was shown to be positively related to employee engagement. Finally, employee trust was found to have a partial mediating effect between authentic leadership and employee engagement.