Authentic leaders promoting store performance: the mediating roles of virtuousness and potency

Sixty-eight stores of a retail chain were used for testing a model in which perceived authentic leadership (AL) predicts stores' sales achievement through the mediating role of perceived store virtuousness and perceived store potency. Employees reported AL, store virtuousness, and store potency. Sales achievement over a period of four consecutive months subsequent to data collection (on independent and mediating variables) was considered as dependent variable (for control: sales achievement in the previous 4 months). The main findings are the following: (a) AL predicts store potency through the mediating role of store virtuousness; (b) store virtuousness predicts sales achievement through the mediating role of store potency; (c) AL predicts sales achievement via the mediating role of both store virtuousness and store potency. By focusing on three positive constructs, whose interrelations have scarcely been explored, and relating them to store performance, the study enriches the Positive Organizational Scholarship movement, and suggests that AL and virtuousness are good in themselves and also potential facilitators of group success.