What is Authentic Leadership?
What is authentic leadership?
Authentic Leadership as a concept has been around for many years. I first came across it in the early 2000’s around the time Bill George published his book ‘Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value’.
It was a popular way of talking about leadership for a while at that time, and I recently thought I was noticing a strong resurgence in the use of the term. When I looked at the annual trends for Google searches for the term ‘Authentic Leadership’, I could see that after a peak in 2004 (when the book was published) it dropped off until 2008, and there has been a gradual increase to 2022, when the number of searches is actually higher than the 2004 peak.
Putting aside my curiosity about why that might be (for another blog post perhaps!), I wanted to respond to the ways I have been seeing Authentic Leadership defined.
I have been a leadership development consultant and coach for over 20 years, and am currently studying to be a practitioner in Being Me Therapy, so let’s just say that I have developed an opinion about what it means to be authentic. I was motivated to write this blog post because I take issue with the simplistic way I sometimes see authentic leadership described.
So what exactly is Authentic Leadership? Well that depends on who you ask!
Bill George originally described it as having four components (1) Self Awareness, (2) Relational Transparency, (3) Balanced Processing, (4) Strong Moral code
This Forbes article lists the five qualities as (1) Purpose and Passion, (2) Values and Behaviors, (3) Relationships and Connectedness, (4) Self-Discipline and Consistency, (5) Heart and Compassion
And This article lists the key characteristics as: (1) Self awareness, (2) Great listening skills (3) Emotional control (4) Relationship driven (5) Accountability (6) Empathy (7) Humility (8) Long-term goals (9) Internal code of ethics.
So who is right? The only thing they really have in common is a focus on relationships and ethics/values/morality.
My challenge with these lists of descriptors is that to a varying extent they are describing a certain type of person – someone who has particular characteristics which suggest that authentic leaders have certain behaviours in common, and a strong moral compass.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the way leaders described in these articles, and I’m sure leaders with these characteristics would make good leaders. I just don’t think that is really what authenticity is. I believe anyone can be authentic, and it will look different for each and every one of us.
I like to go back to the dictionary definition of authenticity. The Cambridge Dictionary says it is ‘the quality of being real or true’. I also like this explanation from MindTools ‘authenticity means you’re true to your own personality, values, and spirit, regardless of the pressure that you’re under to act otherwise’.
This means that an authentic leader may not have a strong moral code – they may behave in a way that you find unethical, or they may have values and principles that are different to yours. That doesn’t make them any less authentic.
I believe that true authentic leadership comes from a deep knowing of who you are, your purpose in life, what drives you, the impact you want to have, and how you want to lead. It recognises that we are complex beings who have different parts of ourselves that don’t always agree with each other – so our behaviour may seem inconsistent to others. For instance you may be competitive and like to achieve. You may also really like people, want to be liked and not hurt others feelings. Sometimes these two parts of you may be in disagreement about how to behave in a given situation, so you may be forced to choose. Effectively you are choosing to be authentic to one part of you, but not to the other.
Authentic leadership is not about striving to cultivate a certain set of characteristics, it is about developing self awareness, and the ability to understand ourselves at a deeper level, to recognise our contradictions, to slow down, pause before acting, and connect our actions to what is important to us, so that our impact is aligned to our intent.
What do you think? What is your experience of authentic leadership?
