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Authentic Leadership, Psychological Capital, and Employees’ Well-Being

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The Positive Side of Occupational Health Psychology

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Abstract

John C. Maxwell, a critically acclaimed American expert on leadership, once said, “everything rises and falls on leadership” (Maxwell in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow them and people will follow you. Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas Nelson Inc, 2007, p. 267). Taken literally, this means that simple organizational variables, like a successful psychosocial work environment, employee satisfaction, absenteeism and presenteeism, job insecurity, and intention to quit the organization, to name a few, could be assigned to the leadership’s efforts or lack thereof. More concretely, should the leadership of any organization be held accountable for any result or development both with respect to the employees and to the organization as a whole? Is it logical for us to accept Maxwell’s proposal hook, line, and sinker?

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  1. Norwegian School of Hotel Management, University of Stavanger, Ellen & Axel Lunds Hus (EA), Kjell Arholms Gate, 39, 4021, Stavanger, Norway

    Oyeniyi Samuel Olaniyan

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  1. Department of Psychology, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

    Marit Christensen

  2. Department of Psychology, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

    Per Øystein Saksvik

  3. Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Maria Karanika-Murray

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Olaniyan, O.S. (2017). Authentic Leadership, Psychological Capital, and Employees’ Well-Being. In: Christensen, M., Saksvik, P., Karanika-Murray, M. (eds) The Positive Side of Occupational Health Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66781-2_5

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