Authentic Leadership and Task Performance in Public Organizations from Sustainability Perspective: The Mediating Role of Supportive Organizational Culture

This study aims to examine the effect of authentic leadership on task performance in publicorganizations from sustainability perspective and to test whether supportive organizationalculture plays a mediating role in this relationship. A quantitative, correlational, crosssectional survey design was used for this study. A questionnaire form was used to collectdata. Authentic leadership, task performance, and supportive organizational culture weremeasured using standard scales. After scale adaptation and factor analyses, one authenticleadership item was removed, resulting in a 15-item structure. Data were collected viaGoogle Forms from 452 civil servants and contracted employees working in a metropolitan municipality in Turkey using convenience sampling. The data were analyzed usingSPSS 26.0 and AMOS 22 for CFA. Construct validity was established through exploratoryand confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA). Internal consistency coefficients werefound to be high. Common method bias was assessed using Harman’s single-factor test.Hypotheses were tested using PROCESS Macro Model 4 with 5000 bootstrap resamples.The findings indicate that authentic leadership does not have a significant direct effecton task performance. However, authentic leadership significantly and positively predictssupportive organizational culture, and supportive organizational culture significantly enhances task performance. Moreover, the effect of authentic leadership on task performanceoccurs indirectly through supportive organizational culture, indicating a full mediatingrole. The results suggest that, in public organizations, leadership effects are more likelyto be transferred into performance outcomes when it is embedded in cultural norms andsupportive practices. From a sustainability perspective, in the absence of direct measuresof sustainability outcomes, self-reported task performance is interpreted as a proximalorganizational outcome rather than a direct indicator of sustainability. Therefore, the studyoffers theoretically grounded sustainability implications for institutional continuity viasupportive organizational culture, efficiency in the use of resources and service quality withthe practices of green HR in the public sector. Future research should employ multi-sourceand multi-indicator measures of sustainability.Keywords: authentic leadership; supportive organizational culture; task performance;public organizations; sustainability business