This article about authentic leadership may be of interest – in part arguing it may perpetuate a “childish, romantic, and ultimately toxic idea”.
They argue:
· Authentic leadership is said to be a popular but is rather conceptually vague
· It’s said to stem from “self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency — in short, being “true to oneself” and acting consistently with one’s values”
· Some research suggests that “widely-used positive leadership style constructs — again, not just authentic, but also ethical and servant leadership — thus suffer from a fatal measurement and conceptual flaw. Rather than being clear behavioural descriptions of what leaders do, these constructs conflate those behaviours with followers’ evaluations of leaders (for example, the leaders’ perceived goodness, past success or value alignment)”
· Nevertheless, some research highlights authentic leadership predicts follower job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and citizenship behaviours, but only modestly – explaining only ~10% of variability in some work
· “very few studies report tangible correlations between authentic leadership and hard metrics of performance, especially at the business or organizational level of analysis, and when employees lack strong psychological capital, which tends to account for the modest effects of authentic leadership on individual task performance.”
· Authentic leadership has been shown to heavily overlap with transformational leadership
· Some measurement issues may create a halo effect, where ratings shift based on perception rather than actual behaviour
· Moreover, impression management is positively related to authentic leadership, as in “effective leaders score significantly higher on impression management, the tendency to adjust and adapt one’s behavior to the specific demands of each situation – think of it as a sort of interpersonal flexibility or social chameleon”
· “Even if authentic leadership was conceived with good intentions, it perpetuates the childish, romantic, and ultimately toxic idea that anyone can lead simply by “being themselves.” That may sound liberating, but it’s as naïve as believing that you can become a concert pianist by banging the keys with feeling”
SafetyInsights.org 