Authentic Leadership

Authentic Leadership.  Authentic leadership is a focus on developing “self-awareness, self-acceptance, and authentic actions and relationships” (Gardner et al., 2005, p. 345). This form of leadership moves beyond the internalized growth, towards authenticity and extends outward so as to include the relationships between followers and stakeholders in the given environment. These interactions are further characterized by trust, mutually set goals, and personal growth amongst all members in the relationship. Many different leadership styles, especially those rooted in positivism, lack strong emphasis on ethics and morality, which results in little direction and guidance from the morality and values that are crucial to human interactions. In contrast, authentic leadership incorporates these issues of morality and values as its central focus (Woolley et al., 2011, p. 439). Authentic leadership is defined by Brown et al. (2005) “as the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision making” (p. 120).