(G) Leadership that is authentic Flashcards
Focus authentic leadership
whether leadership is genuine and real. reason that this is upcoming is the number of scandals occurring in society such as the Enron scandal. causes people to doubt and mistrust companies, so searching for trustworthy, honest and good leaders.
authentic leadership also discussed in transformational leadership but not fully established
Definition authentic leadership
no clear definition, but multiple definitions with different viewpoints
three different viewpoints of authentic leadership
- intrapersonal perspective: clear focus on leader, and what goes on with leader. three main concepts: leader’s self-knowledge, self-regulation and self-concept
- interpersonal process: authentic leadership is relational, thus formed by both leaders and followers together, authenticity emerges from interaction leaders an followers
- developmental perspective: authentic leadership not specific trait but as something learned by leader. develops over lifetime, and triggered by major life events
Walumbwa et al.
also takes development approach, states that authentic leadership is composed out of 4 different related characteristics:
- self-awareness
- internalized moral perspective
- balanced processing
- relational transparency
these 4 behaviors are learned over leaders lifetime, and stems from leader’s positive psychological qualities and strong ethics
2 approaches of authentic leadership
- Practical approach: formed by real-life events, training & developing literature
- Theoretical approach: formed through findings from social science research
Practical approach (+name inventor)
Bill George focuses on characteristic of authentic leaders, describes essential qualities for leadership, and how these can be developed
found 5 basic characteristic for authentic leadership:
-understand (purpose)
-passion for their mission (hearth)
-strong (values) about doing the right thing
-show (self-discipline) and act according to values
-establish trusting (relationships) with other people
show you what do to become authentic leader. this is developmental process across entire life
background Theoretical approach
-wanted to buit upon the research of Bass on the meaning of the authentic transformational leadership
to develop theory, info about fields of leadership, positive organizational scholarships and ethics were used
Explanation Bill George 5 basic characteristics for authentic leadership:
- Leaders show (purpose) since they know where they are now and there they want to go. so inspired, passionate and intrinsically motivated about goals
- (hearth), so sensitive to others, opening one’s self to others, and be willing to help them
- Leaders also understand (values) they have and behave accordingly. In difficult situations, authentic leaders do not abandon their values but challenges to strengthen them
- (self-discipline) helps leaders to achieve their goals, gives them focus, determination and energy to carry out their work. also give a sense of security as they feel like everything is under control.
- ability to build strong (relationships) so leaders opening up themselves in order to make connection with others
Major challenge developing theoretical approach
- to define the construct
- to identify its characteristics
multiple models have been developed in order to show the process of authentic leadership
Walumbwa et al. research to find components of authentic leadership. 4 components:
- self-awareness: based on leader personal insights, in which individuals understand themselves, know their strengths and weaknesses, and their impact on others. includes reflecting on core values, emotions, goals, identity, motives, and being aware of and trusting your feelings
- Internalize moral perspective: self-regulatory process where internal moral standards and values (not by outside pressures) are used to guide individuals behavior
- balanced processing: self-regulatory behavior, about ability of individual to analyze info in objective way, and to explore opinion of others before making decision
- relational transparency: being honest and open when presenting one’s true self to others, when sharing core feelings, motives and inclinations with others. Important negative and positive aspects of themselves are shown to others
What do positive attributes of authentic leadership do, and which 2 qualities do these attributes have
it enhances the capacity of a leader to develop components of authentic leadership
these attributes have trait-like and state like quality
- trait-like quality: bc fixed aspect of someone’s personality
- state like quality: bc with training, individuals can develop or change their characteristic
Four key positive psychological attributes which impact authentic leadership:
- Optimism: cognitive process of viewing situations in positive light and favorable expectations from the future
- Confidence: having self-efficacy, belief one is capable to complete certain task. Confident people are motivated, persisitance and welcome challenge
- Hope: positive motivational state based on goal planning and willpower
- Resilience: capacity to recover from and adjust to harsh situations
moral reasoning:
capacity to make ethical decisions about right and wrong. process develop this capacity is lifelong
Critical life events:
major events that shape people’s lives, can be positive and negative. these events leads to change. It is argued that authentic leadership for large part rests on insights attached to those life events. These events can stimulate growth in individuals, to become strong leaders.
In what way does authentic leadership work?
- both practical and theoretical perspective is authentic leadership seen as developmental process that develops over time in leaders, however both different descriptions of how authentic leadership works
practical approach; prescriptions are provided on how to be authentic, and how to develop it. With George approach focuses on 5 characteristics, purposeful, value centered, relational, self-disciplined and compassionate
theoretical approach: no prescriptions are given rather description of authentic leadership and what it accounts for. It works bc leaders show internalized moral perspective, self-awareness, balanced processing and relational transparency. developed in lifelong process, shaped by critical life events
Authentic leadership strengths:
- fulfills need of trustworthy leadership
- provides guidelines for individuals to become authentic leader
- explicit moral dimension, leaders do what is right for followers and society
- emphasizes authentic values and behaviors need to be developed over time. everyone can develop and learn how to be more authentic
- can be measured by using ALQ, authentic leadership questionnaire
Authentic leadership criticisms:
concepts and ideas still broad, do not have broad empirical base, not fully tested for validity
- moral component is not fully substantiated. not clear how value of leader are related to self-awareness
- questioned by researchers if positive psychological capacities should be included as authentic leadership component. this could broader the construct too much which makes it hard to measure.
- unclear how it leaders results in positive organizational outcomes, since not much data exist, validity still questionable.
- questions if approach effective, so if it produces productive outcomes
Application Authentic leadership
-despite not much research:
some common themes can be found from authentic leadership literature:
first: people have capacity to become authentic leader
second: authentic leader should try to do the right thing
last: critical life events shape authentic leadership and can trigger growth and greater authenticity
ALQ
Authentic Leadership questionnaire, measures 4 factors of authentic leadership: self-awareness, balanced processing, internalized moral perspective and relational transparency
