Authentic Leadership Flashcards
Intrapersonal definition
Intrapersonal definition
• Leadership based on self-concept and how self-concept relates to actions (Shamir & Eilam, 2005).
• Relies on the life-story of the leader.
• Three authentic leadership characteristics:
• Authentic leaders exhibit genuine leadership
Not carbon copies
• Authentic leaders lead from conviction
• Authentic leaders are originals, not copies
Not coaching from a value perspective, personal self-concept, how do you think your life story impact you and your approach to leadership
Interpersonal definition
• Leadership is created by leaders and followers together (Eagly, 2005)
• Dependent on the reciprocal interactions of leaders and followers.
• Foster positive follower attitudes and outcomes through positive modelling and social exchanges.
• Require a high degree of buy-in to be effective
Reciprocal – model influences you
Build my own model of leadership
Developmental definition
• Leadership can be nurtured, and develops over a lifetime (Avolio & Gardner, 2005).
• Can be triggered by major life events.
• Leader behaviour is grounded in positive psychological qualities and strong ethics.
Four authentic leadership components:
• Self-awareness
• Internalised moral perspective
• Balanced processing
• Relational transparency (isten again)
Self-awareness
• Reflecting on one’s core values, identity, emotions, motives
• Being aware of and trusting own feelings
• Internalised moral perspective
• Self-regulatory process using internal moral standards to guide behaviour
Own personal standards
Balanced processing
• Ability to analyse information objectively and explore other people’s opinions before making a decision
• Relational transparency
• Being open and honest in presenting one’s true self to others
Other factors that influence Authentic Leadership
• Positive psychological capacities
• Confidence, hope, optimism, resilience
• Moral reasoning capacities
• Deciding between right and wrong
• Promoting justice, greater good of the organisation or community
• Critical life events – positive or negative
• Act as a catalyst for change
• People attach insights to their life experiences
• When people tell life stories they gain clarity about who they are
• Stimulate personal growth
Practical Approaches
Robert Terry (1993)
What impacted them, going deep into the meaning of their life
• Action-centred model
• Leaders should strive to do what is right
• Two core questions leaders to address in any situation:
1. What is really, really going on?
2. What are we going to do about it?
• The ability to frame an issue correctly is essential to leadership, to avoid misdirected, misunderstood, and mismanaged action
• Authentic Action Wheel
Making decisions authentically
• Action-framing tool to frame the correct course of action for a given issue
• Locate the problem on the diagnostic wheel
• Strategically select an appropriate response to the problem
• Human action fulfilment can be dissected into six parts / action features
• If we want to redirect attention and shift the action outcome to a new possibility of fulfilment, we can know what we are doing and why we are doing it
• Oh, if it was that simple.
• Premise:
• All human action is structured the same, in every act and situation
• All aspects of the model are implicitly present in every act. Therefore all features of action must eventually be addressed in any proposed action
• What is critical is the location of our attention and the direction of our engagement at the outset of the leadership task
6 features of Authentic leadership
Meaning: guiding values, principles and ethics
Mission: goals, objective s, and desires
Power: energy, motivation, morale, and control
Structures Systems, policies, and procedures
Resources:people, capital, information, equipment, and time
Existence: history and identity
• Five characteristics of authentic leaders: Bill George (2003, 2007)
- Understand their purpose (passion)
- Strong values (behaviour)
- Trusting relationships (connectedness)
- Self-discipline (consistency)
- Act from the heart (mission)(compassion)
How does Authentic Leadership work
• Authentic leadership is a complex, developmental process
• The practical approaches are quite prescriptive:
• Terry (1993) – what is truly good for the leader, follower, and organisation
• George (2003) – 5 characteristics leaders need to be authentic
• Theoretical approach describes what accounts for authentic leadership:
• Four attributes
• Attributes developed over lifetime, often through critical events
• Components of authentic leadership can impact follower behaviours
Strengths for Authentic Leadership
• Fulfils society’s expressed need for trustworthy leadership; fills a void in an uncertain world.
• Provides broad guidelines for those who want to become authentic leaders; both practical and theoretical approaches provide a map.
• Like transformational and servant leadership, authentic leadership has an explicit moral dimension.
• Unlike traits that only some people exhibit, everyone can learn to be more authentic.
• Can be measured using an established instrument (ALQ)
Criticisms for Authentic Leadership
• The theory is still in the formative stages, so some concepts in the practical approaches are not fully developed or substantiated.
• The moral component of authentic leadership is not fully explained; it is unclear how higher values such as justice inform authentic leadership.
• The rationale for including positive psychological capacities as a part of authentic leadership has not been clearly explained by researchers.
• The link between authentic leadership and positive organisational outcomes is unclear. It is also not clear whether authentic leadership is sufficient to achieve organisational goals.
