A transcendent view of what it means to be authentic in the context of leadership

Abstract

Leadership is a critical aspect of organizational success. There have been many leadership styles and models that have emerged from the efforts of both practitioners and researchers. In the early 2000s, authentic leadership offered the potential to be the next prominent leadership style. However, the evolution of the theory never established significant momentum, in part because of the lack of a clear and consistent definition of what it means to be an authentic leader. This is the first study to use a multi-disciplined qualitative approach for evaluating authenticity and leadership. Using grounded theory, this study attempted to revisit authentic leadership by decoupling authenticity from leadership and exploring what it means to be authentic in the context of leadership. Study One used interviews to examine authenticity in leadership by capturing how a diverse group of leaders conceptualize, observe and experience authenticity. The grounded theory analysis revealed themes and construct variables that were consistent with existing authentic leadership literature. In addition, new construct variables of fear and shifting of shared norms emerged to provide further understanding of the relationship between authenticity and leadership. Study One proposed exploring a new conceptual model for high authenticity in leadership. Study Two seeks to refine the conceptual model by further investigating the newly identified construct variables of fear and shifting of shared norms. This will be accomplished by performing a second series of interviews with another sample of leaders. Similar to Study One, a grounded theory approach was used to interpret respondent data and draw conclusions.