Authentic Leadership and Conflict Management among Youth in Malaysia: The Mediating Role of Resilience

Abstract

Youths are the scion of future leadership who should be instilled with leadership style and skills for managing conflicts. Discussions related to leadership show that the leadership qualities found in youths varies from each other where the qualities are influenced by the environment and the ability of the youth. In addition to the challenges present, the exposure of youths to resilience is important for them to adapt to society. Thus, this study aimed to examine the relationship between authentic leadership and conflict management skills among youths in Malaysia with resilience as the mediating variable. This study used a quantitative approach through the distribution of questionnaires involving 439 respondents among youths comprising students of educational programme and novice teachers in the northern zone of Peninsular Malaysia.  Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, The Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory (ROCI II) were used in this study. The data was analyzed using SPSS 29 and SmartPLS 4 software. The findings showed that there was a significant relationship between authentic leadership and conflict management while resilience was a significant mediator between authentic leadership and conflict management among youths. Accordingly, individuals with a leadership style are able to manage conflicts due to the resilience skills inherent in them and are able to create positive emotions in the face of adversity.