When Does Authenticity Benefit Employee Well-Being: A Relational Framework of Authenticity at Work

Authenticity at work has emerged as a critical factor in employee well-being research, with extensive evidence supporting its positive organizational implications. However, the existing literature primarily focuses on individual authenticity effects (either employee or leader authenticity) while neglecting the complex relational dynamics and boundary conditions that may influence the effectiveness of individual authenticity. From a person–environment fit perspective, this study examined dyadic authenticity fit between leaders and employees, an underexplored relational perspective that goes beyond individual-level authenticity effects. We propose that the positive effects of authenticity do not always function well when the dynamic authenticity relationship between employees and leaders diverges. We conducted a polynomial regression and response surface analysis on a valid sample of 412 employees from an IT company operating in China. The results showed that anxiety peaked when leader authenticity diverged from employee authenticity in either direction, indirectly resulting in high turnover tendency. The high-high authenticity fit exhibited superior performance among all fit situations. These findings highlight the critical importance of authenticity fit in leader–follower relationships for promoting employee well-being and organizational retention.