Leadership aspirations: The roles of authentic leadership and work engagement

Introduction: Leadership is vital in the military domain, where decisions impact lives. This study analyses how authentic leadership may influence leadership aspirations, considering work engagement as a mediator. It aims to identify organisational factors that motivate military personnel to advance in their careers. Method: A quantitative design was used with 320 officers from the Uruguayan Army and Navy. Authentic leadership, work engagement and leadership aspirations were measured. Structural equation modelling was applied to analyse direct and indirect relationships, controlling for gender and tenure. Results: The hypothesised model is confirmed, contributing to the idea that authentic leadership outcomes predict variance in military personnel’s leadership aspirations through work engagement. Our results confirm a full mediation model. The model showed good fit and explained 31% of the variance in aspirations. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of integrating authentic leadership development into military training to improve work engagement and leadership potential. Future research should consider additional factors such as social identification or self-efficacy that may influence these relationships. Limitations include non-random sampling, sample homogeneity, and the cross-sectional design, which hinder generalizability and causal inference.