Authentic Leadership and Its Impact on Functional Maturity an Exploratory Study of the Opinions of a Sample of University Leaders in Private Universities in Baghdad City

This study aims to examine the impact of functional maturity on authentic leadership by exploring the extent to which the dimensions of functional maturity namely, career planning, job training, formation of work-related attitudes, and decision-making ability influence the dimensions of authentic leadership, which include relational transparency, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and self-awareness. Private colleges in the city of Baghdad were selected as the field for this research, targeting all administrative leaders (deans, assistant deans, and department heads), totaling 145 individuals. A sample was selected using comprehensive enumeration, random, or non-random sampling methods across 10 private colleges in Baghdad. A questionnaire was utilized as the primary tool for measuring the research variables. To analyze the data, a variety of statistical techniques were employed using SPSS (v.23) and Amos (v.25) software. The researchers adopted a descriptive-analytical methodology to complete this study, which yielded several key findings, the most notable being the existence of a significant impact relationship between the study variables within the senior management of the surveyed colleges.