Black Sheep, or: What Authentic Leadership is NOT

It’s truly funny. Whilst I’m still trying to understand all aspects of Authentic Leadership – the serious academic approach to effective leadership, that is - others seem to have no difficulties to simply grab a few words from the starry sky to describe what they think it means. The latest blog entry that made my skin crawl is by an American self-acclaimed “spiritual teacher and visionary thinker” who thought the world has been waiting for his definition of Authentic Leadership. (I’m referring to his blog ("http://www.andrewcohen.org/andrew/authentic-leadership.asp") with great caution and I have to warn you: what he describes is neither ‘Authentic’ nor ‘Leadership’. I decided to comment on this issue only because I have become somehow obsessed with the mission of clearing the name of Authentic Leadership off all its misconceptions.)

Spiritualists often try to validate the contents of their speeches by borrowing business-like terms; unfortunately, words like ‘authenticity’ and ‘leadership’ due to their multifaceted nature are indeed terms that can be stretched beyond recognition. The author of this website states that Authentic Leadership means to Stand alone, Live fearlessly, Act heroically, Want to be free and true more than anything else, Take unconditional responsibility for oneself, Face everything and avoid nothing, At all times see things impersonally, and Live for a higher purpose.

It’s not the individual recommendations for better behaviors and attitudes that bother me but the fact that they do not correlate with authentic leadership. To pick on one, let’s look at “stand alone”, probably referring to the necessity of a lonely but brave ‘maverick-status’ of an authentic person. Fact is that authenticity cannot be an alienated function of a leader’s qualities because it is exactly the interaction with others (subordinates) that renders a leader authentic. In short, whatever a leader or manager thinks his individual degree of authenticity is, it can only be confirmed by the people around him. To stand alone would be no good sign of an authentic leader but a lonely superior at the top of the crowd. In sum, all these alleged signs of authentic leadership are exclusively self-directed and would preoccupy the leader with sorting out his own purpose in life. They go far beyond the foundation of authentic leadership, self-awareness, and do not mention once their impact on other people.

Once again I want to stress that authentic leadership is a highly complex activity that can only be understood by a lively interaction between a leader, the one who leads others, and followers, those who want to follow. Hence, if we want to utilize the concept of authentic leadership to actually understand the complexity of effective human relationships for practical use in business contexts, we must separate the wheat from the chaff:

1) Spirituality is NOT the foundation for Authentic Leadership

(Previously: Delete the word “Spirituality” from our understanding of Authentic Leadership)

Spirituality lives in another galaxy; Authentic Leaders live on earth.

2) Remember that Leadership is Interactive

It’s follower’s perceptions that make authentic leaders.

For links, articles and references contact andrea@derlercoaching.com

Book review: The Myth of Authenticity (R. Niermeyer)

Recently I stumbled upon a book by the German psychologist, leadership trainer and keynote speaker Rainer Niermeyer, titled the “Myth of Authenticity: The art of playing the right leadership role”. What instilled my great interest in his writing at first soon turned into disappointment about the lack of academic research Niermeyer conducted for this book. What I’m most surprised about is the fact that he falls for the most common misconception about the concept of authenticity and authentic leadership. By summarizing the term Authenticity as an “empty in-word” that has wrongly been promoted by dozens of other leadership experts to its truly transformational status, he shows insufficient knowledge about the concept. Hence, what will haunt Niermeyer most in the aftermath of this book is the fact that he completely ignored the huge stream of research and theoretical studies about Authentic Leadership that has been conducted over the past years.

The core of Niermeyer’s argument is that Authenticity (and Authentic leadership) means to ‘be who you are’ in all life situations; however, to ‘be who you are’, he writes, is not possible because you play many different roles during your life time (Manager, parent, board member, life partner etc). By stating that being authentic means to openly display emotions and mood swings,  to follow spontaneous impulses, or to share inappropriate information with others, he totally misconstrues the concept of authenticity. He  furthermore conveys the idea that we cannot be authentic (leaders) and show a variety of behaviors with different audiences at the same time. Despite the fact this this is not a book written for academia but for managers and leadership practitioners, Niermeyer would have benefited from looking across the pond for more research on the topic.

(Just as a side note: the current list of articles and books for my literature review of Authentic Leadership is many pages long, just to give you an idea of the complexity of this issue. In this article I will only be able to shortly reply to the above mentioned basic criticism of the simplicity of authenticity/authentic leadership and the different roles we all need to play.)

Authenticity and Authentic Leadership

Pointing the way in terms of these studies are Prof Michael Kernis (University of Georgia) and Prof. Bruce Avolio (University of Nebraska-Lincoln). Kernis’ work on authenticity describes 4 components of authenticity and serves as the basis for the concept of authentic leadership as well:

•    Authentic people/leaders know who they are and who they need to be.
(Awareness of and trust in, one’s motives, feelings, desires and self-relevant cognitions.)

•    Authentic people/leaders don’t distort or exaggerate their own experiences or feedback from others
(Unbiased Processing of Self-Relevant Information)

•    Authentic people/leaders have the ability to express their core motives. It does NOT mean that they follow a compulsion to live their’ own self’ at all costs despite external pressure and circumstances.
( Acting according to true Self.)

•    Authentic people/leaders value and achieve open and trusting relationships with others, letting them see their real selves. This does not include inappropriate actions with relevant others (work, family etc).
(Relational Orientation.)

Authenticity, therefore, requires a deep sense of humility and complex understanding of oneself and one’s relationship to other people. It is far from the idea of showing your ‘true face’ in all situations just to make a point, and integrates the necessity to adapt to different situations, circumstances and audiences.

When we enter the arena of Authentic Leadership, it gets even more complicated, because then the values, motives and ideas that we have about ourselves, are further influenced by the responsibility we have for our associates and business goals. Then, the concept of authentic leadership has to integrate the ability to create an ethical climate and by following one’s own rules in a consistent manner.

The question whether an authentic person/leader can still live out different roles, and how this is possible from a theoretical point of view, has been approached by me in my previous blog entry titled: “Is there a thing like an authentic chameleon?” Feb 2nd 2008), even if not to my own full satisfaction. However, many months of research further I know that there are core values which an authentic person/leader has and develops over time, that make up his self and his identity. Self-Awareness is the foundation on which authenticity rests, and which enables us to get to know ourselves in relation to others, which allows us to become a little less biased, helps us to communicate more openly and eventually renders us more effective leaders.

Research describing the effects of authentic leadership and its transformational character has been conducted and more is in process. This branch of a new stream of organizational studies called "Positive Organizational Behavior" (POS) will further grow and make a long lasting mark in leadership studies. I  just wish books like Rainer Niermeyer’s would integrate more different points of view and research results on a topic so important as authentic leadership. We could then work more efficiently on ways to develop more authentic leaders instead of trying to defend this highly complex human phenomenon to a repetition of misconceptions.

For links, articles and references contact andrea@derlercoaching.com