A systematic review of authentic leadership literature in educational research from 1997 to 2021

Given the recent upsurge in publications investigating authentic leadership in education since 1997, this study was carried out to review scholarly publications on authentic leadership in educational research, drawing on a database of 91 studies published between 1997 and 2021. Descriptive methods were employed to identify the features of the related literature with respect to the volume of publication, journal and geographic distribution of the literature, types of studies, authorship trends, citation impact, measurement instruments, research methods, identified antecedents, mediators, moderators, and outcomes of authentic leadership in educational research. The results revealed that the published research consisted mostly of empirical studies. The analysis also revealed that more qualitative methods have been employed in recent years. Significant relationships were also found between authentic leadership and different outcomes (e.g. performance, satisfaction, trust in the leader). Recommendations were provided to improve the quality of the authentic leadership literature.