%0 Journal Article %T Influence Authentic Leadership on Readiness for Organizational Change with Mediating Role of Psychological Capital %J School Administration %I University of Kurdistan With the Co-operation of The Iranian Educational Administration Association %Z 2538-4724 %A Khakpour, Mahnaz %A hajeanzahaie, zahra %A ashraf ganjoui, farideh %D 2019 %\ 09/23/2019 %V 7 %N 3 %P 141-125 %! Influence Authentic Leadership on Readiness for Organizational Change with Mediating Role of Psychological Capital %K Authentic Leadership %K Psychological Capital %K Readiness for Change %K Principals of sport schools %K Structural equation %R 10.34785/J010.1398.221 %X Abstract: The organizational change for many employees is a stressful experience, because the change may be uncertain and affect the feelings and abilities of employees. The readiness for change has individual and organizational levels. The individual's level of readiness for change means the extent to which people are emotionally and cognitively inclined to accept a specific plan to disturb the willfulness of the present situation. The preparation for organizational change involves proportionality, management support, change efficiency, and personal gain. Successful organizational change depends on the ability of leaders to recognize the need for change and planning to realize it, so that management, along with the workforce, moves with unity and integrity toward achieving predetermined goals. Therefore, the role of leaders for all companies and organizations to achieve the benefits and achievements of staff readiness for organizational change has been taken into consideration, which emphasizes the development of strengths, virtues and perceptions consistent with intrinsic values. The authentic leaders are those who are self-aware and aware of their thoughts and behaviors, and are sure, hopeful, optimistic, and flexible and have a very moral character. Based on the definition of Walumbwa and the associates, the authentic leadership is characterized as a pattern of leadership behavior that extends both positive psychological capabilities and a positive moral atmosphere. They reinforce self-awareness, internal moral outlook, balanced information processing and transparency in the relationship between leader and follower. Workers led by authentic leaders have a high psychological capital. This psychological source encourages them to be more creative. The psychological capital shows the behavioral features of the original leaders as a positive concept and gives them distinctive moral hypotheses. Focusing on understanding and describing happiness in an organization, strengthening positive psychological capacities, leads executives to better manage their employees.  The psychological capital leads to positive emotions in the organization's employees, which are the readiness for change in the direction of organizational growth and development.  Considering the above description and the role of school administrators and educators in providing educational services and improving planning in education, the necessity of this research is revealed. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of authentic leadership on the readiness for organizational change with the mediating role of psychological capital. The statistical population of this research includes 200 people adopted from all principals of sport schools of Tehran Province. Using Combined Krejcy-Morgan table and Structural Equation Modeling, 187 subjects were selected by simple random sampling method. Authentic Leadership Walumbwa, Luthanz, Avey, & Oke (2011), Readiness for Organizational Change for Holt, Armenakis, Feild, & Harris (2007) and Luthanz, Norman, Avolio, & Avey (2008) Psychological Capital Questionnaires were used for collecting data. The internal consistency of the questionnaires was 0.95, 0.82 and 0.86 by Cronbach's alpha test, respectively. The research data were analyzed by using PLS software and structural equation modeling approach. The results showed that the effect of authentic leadership on psychological capital and readiness for organizational change as well as the effect of psychological capital on the readiness for organizational change is positive and significant. The mediating role of psychological capital is influential in the relationship of authentic leadership with readiness for organizational change. According to the results, if there is authentic leadership in organizations and especially educational organizations and the promotion of psychological capital, we can see a higher degree of employee readiness for organizational change. Therefore, presentation of authentic leadership behaviors by managers and development of psychological capital is proposed to increase the readiness of employees to accept organizational changes. Based on the results of this research, it has been suggested that ethical indicators of managers should be considered to respond to the challenges of organizations and employees to provide the main leadership behaviors and the development of mental capital in order to increase the readiness of employees to accept organizational changes. Managers who have high leadership morale have a positive attitude towards themselves and employee behavior and consider this rule, which is always a principle of integrity, in relation to employees, when choosing to prioritize. Managers will also strive to gain a genuine recognition of themselves, their employees and their needs and the organization they are working in as they are aware of the surrounding environment, which is always improving our readiness to face up to the challenges ahead. The managers try to identify the emotions and feelings of employees. This identification requires the closest of managers to the staff and the establishment of transparent relationships. Managers adhere to the principles and values they express, not in speech but in practice. In fact, what they expect from employees' behavior, by creating strong moral environments, is effective in improving their relationships with employees. Finally, it is suggested that in future studies, all principals of sport schools of the whole country should be selected as a statistical society. As with other researches, the present study was subject to limitations. In this research, we tried to collect the data of the study in a short time period. Also, this research is based on a quantitative approach and due to the limited quantitative methods such as the existence of closed questions and the limitation of the persons to answer the questions asked. Also, the possibility of unrealistic responses by participants, due to inaccurate understanding of questions, can undermine the results. Of course, I tried to reduce this chance by explaining this and devoting enough time to answer the questions. This research in the Education Organization examined the effect of genuine leadership on the readiness for organizational change of employees with the mediating variable of psychological capital; therefore, the specific characteristics of the organization may limit the external validity of the findings and should be cautious about the generalization of the results to other organizations. If this research is carried out in manufacturing, research or private or nongovernmental organizations, it may produce different results. Neither the present scheme nor the use of structural equation modeling proves the causality. According to Anderson and Greenberg, although the use of the structural equation modeling approach provides the ability to generate causal inferences, it is necessary to take caution in this regard. %U https://jsa.uok.ac.ir/article_61269_578d48771b69d534716e7fdc193d7e0d.pdf