Leadership seems to be a challenge for organizations, institutions as well as countries specifically, developing countries. This paper investigates the antecedents of one promising remedy for today’s leadership crisis namely, authentic leadership (Bill, 2003 cited in Wang, 2014) in three higher education institutions. The main aim was to examine how social and cognitive intelligence link to authentic leadership, and how organizational citizenship behavior acts as an outcome of authentic leadership. The study was descriptive. The study revealed a significant positive correlation between social intelligence and authentic leadership as well as cognitive intelligence and authentic leadership. Finally, it was discovered that a significant positive relationship existed between authentic leader and organizational citizenship behavior. The study recommended that leaders within institutions in particular and other organizations must focus on ethos like openness, confrontation, trust, authenticity, proactive, autonomy, and collaboration to make authentic leadership effective and successful.
Keywords: Authentic Leadership, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Social Intelligence, cognitive intelligence
