Authentic Leadership and Engaging Employees: A Moderated Mediation Model of Leader–Member Exchange and Power Distance

Abstract

This study developed and tested a multilevel, moderated mediation model of whether, how, and when authentic leadership can affect employee work engagement in a hotel context, building on social exchange theory. A two-wave data collection process gathered 440 valid responses of hotel frontline employees from five-star hotels in China. The result supported a positive influence of authentic leadership on work engagement and the mediating role of leader–member exchange (LMX). Hotel employees’ perceived power distance orientation moderated the indirect relationship between authentic leadership and work engagement through LMX. In contrast to previous studies supporting the negative effect of power distance on employee behavior, the present findings suggest that power distance strengthens the relationship between authentic leadership and hotel employees’ work engagement. This study contributes to authentic leadership literature and provides insights into how interactions between personal and contextual factors affect authentic leadership’s influence on work engagement in hospitality organizations.