Instrumental leadership and authentic leadership as predictors of affective commitment and organizational learning with the mediating role of social skills: A comparative analysis of Maroc Telecom and Türk Telekom

Research on leadership in regard of its organizational outcomes have shifted in the recent years for more comprehensive understanding of the construct. However, less attention is evidently paid to understand the leadership process from the follower's perspective. This study aims to investigate different relationships among instrumental and authentic leadership, affective commitment, and organizational learning. Social skills were used to mediate these relationships. Instrumental leaders use their strategic thinking skills and their expertise to instill commitment and organizational learning practices. Whereas authentic leaders rely on their inner values and purpose to help building a learning organization. In this regard, two samples from Morocco (226 participant) and Türkiye (208 participant) were the basis of this comparative analysis to investigate different relationships and effects among variables. Gender distribution counts for 248 men and 150 women, and the average age and seniority within both samples are 33 and 6 respectively. Collected data were compiled in SPSS and AMOS. Structural equation model was used to extract estimates in the form of path analysis and to run mediation effects of social skills. In this study, instrumental and authentic leadership were analyzed as predictors to affective commitment and organizational learning by the means of robust fit indices. In mediation analysis, the follower's perspective reflects the level of his/her savoir-faire in interacting with the leader. Findings prevail that instrumental leadership and authentic leadership are strong predictors of organizational learning in both samples. These relationships are mediated with the catalyst role of social skills in both samples too. Instrumental leadership has positive effect on affective commitment in Morocco, and this effect is enhanced with social skills. In Türkiye, instrumental leadership neither predicted affective commitment via direct effect nor when it was mediated with social skills. This comparative study also prevailed that the levels of commitment and the overall score of social skills are higher in Morocco than Türkiye. Keywords: affective commitment, authentic leadership, follower, instrumental leadership, mediation, organizational learning, social skills, structural equation model