Authentic Leadership

 

“To be a great leader, you need to be yourself.” - The first principle of leadership is authenticity.

 

Authentic leaders are those who know themselves well and remain true to their values and beliefs. They have strong values and a sense of purpose that guide their decisions and actions.

 

The most effective leaders, those who have the most long-lasting impact on their followers and their organizations, are those who have found their “true north”. The key to authentic leadership is understanding personal strengths and developing them.

 

To apply recent research on authentic leadership, practitioners of leadership should:

• Understand their own purpose: Leaders must understand themselves and their motivation and what they are looking for.

• Practice solid values:  Leaders must have personal values that guide their decisions and their actions. These values develop based on their personal experiences and challenges.

• Connect with their followers: Leaders must disclose appropriate information about themselves with followers to help establish long-lasting relationships.

• Demonstrate self-discipline: Leaders must work hard to demonstrate their values and lead by action as well as words.

 

Definition and Elements

Researchers consider authentic leadership to be a continuum where at one end a leader is either unaware of his or her values or does not follow them and at the other end, the person is able to articulate values clearly and use them to guide his or her behavior.

 

Components of authentic leadership

• Self-awareness - Being aware of and trusting one’s emotions, motives, complexities, abilities and potential inner conflicts

• Unbiased or balanced processing - Ability to consider, within reasonable limits, multiple perspectives and inputs and assess information in a balanced manner both in regard to information about the self and others

• Behaviors are true to self and motivated by personal convictions - Focused by own convictions; unencumbered by others’ expectations or desire to lease others; decisions and behaviors guided by personal values

• Relational authenticity or transparency - Ability to disclose and share information about self appropriately and openly to relate to others; achieving openness and truthfulness in close relationships