Effect of authentic leadership on mental health: the mediating roles of areas of worklife and occupational coping self-efficacy

This study aimed at investigating the effect of authentic leadership on mental health through mediating roles of areas of worklife and occupational coping self-efficacy. The statistical population of this study were all employees of a public company affiliated to the Ministry of Power, from whom 325 were selected through stratified random sampling. The instruments used in the study consisted of Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALI) (Walmba et al, 20008), Areas of Worklife (Leiter and Maslach, 2004), Occupational Coping Self-Efficacy (Peasanti et al, 2008), and General Health (Goldberg and Williams, 1998).The proposed model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) using path analysis.The bootstrapping method was used to test the mediation Effects. The hypothesized model of the study fitted the data reasonably well. The results indicated that authentic leadership had a significant direct effect on areas of worklife (p < 0.001), areas of worklife had a significant direct effect on occupational coping self-efficacy and mental health (p < 0.001) and occupational coping self-efficacy had a significant direct effect on mental health (p < 0.001). The results also supported the mediating roles of areas of work life and occupational coping self-efficacy between authentic leadership and mental health.