Authentic Leadership: Getting Back to the Roots of the ‘Root Construct’?

Abstract

In their 2011 review paper, Gardner et al. (Authentic Leadership: a review of the literature and research agenda. Leadership Quarterly, 22, pp. 1120-1145) concluded that the authentic leadership (AL) construct was still in the first stage of evolution, that of concept introduction and evaluation. At that time, the field was characterized by two types of contribution: conceptual expositions and largely quantitative research seeking to map out its antecedents and consequences, moderators and mediators. The current review aims to: (1) critically evaluate the development of the AL construct to the present time; and (2) taking this evaluation as a point of departure, propose the need for a radical re-grounding of understanding of AL aimed at countering what the authors believe to be the substantive flaws in both its philosophical underpinnings and empirical grounding. The authors propose that these shortcomings have arisen owing to the failure of existential and other critiques of the dominant (normative and functionalist) discourse of AL to gain traction, and owing to an absence of practicebased, qualitative research. As a strategic platform for the potential re-grounding and relaunch of AL, the authors propose a radical return to the existential and practice roots of authenticity as the basis for a broader understanding of 'authentic leadership' as a 'central organizing principle' in leadership studies. Despite the flaws identified in the AL construct, the authors suggest that the notion of authenticity may still have a valuable role to play in the study of leadership: that role, however, can only be determined through a thorough understanding of AL as a practice-based phenomenon.

Be(com)ing Real: a Multi-source and an Intervention Study on Mindfulness and Authentic Leadership

“…The psychological leadership literature has borne many definitions and discussions of authenticity and authentic leadership in the past years (for an overview, see, e.g., Iszatt-White & Kempster, 2018). Despite a number of significant differences in those conceptualizations, there is also much overlap.…”

Managers’ Resources for Authentic Leadership – a Multi‐study Exploration of Positive Psychological Capacities and Ethical Organizational Climates

“…Original conceptualizations of AL assumed such temporal dynamics on the day level (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Cooper, Scandura and Schriesheim, 2005; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; May et al ., 2003), but research has failed to study these fluctuations (e.g. Alvesson and Einola, 2019; Ibarra, 2015; Iszatt‐White and Kempster, 2018).…”

“…Authentic leadership (AL) is highly valued in today's business world as it relates to positive outcomes for employees and organizations (Banks et al ., 2016; Gardner et al ., 2011; Gill and Caza, 2018; Hoch et al ., 2018). While substantial progress has been made in the study of AL since its introduction (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Luthans and Avolio, 2003), scholars call for a better understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of AL and greater plurality in methodological approaches to fully develop its theoretical and practical merit (Alvesson and Einola, 2019; Iszatt‐White and Kempster, 2018; Sidani and Rowe, 2018).…”

“…Here we test personal resources and AL on a between‐person level of analysis and replicate the findings of the role of contextual resources. The multi‐study approach allows us to constructively replicate (Eden, 2002) and compare results (Iszatt‐White and Kempster, 2018; Xanthopoulou et al ., 2009), thereby advancing the understanding of AL and COR theory at within‐ and between‐person levels of analysis (Kelemen, Matthews and Breevaart, 2019; McCormick et al ., 2018; Miller and Bamberger, 2016; Podsakoff et al ., 2019).…”

Putting the leader back into authentic leadership: Reconceptualising and rethinking leaders

“…Researchers have, however, found conceptual confusion between the four domains of authentic leadership (Crawford, Lewis, Martin, & Dawkins, 2017), specifically, the authentic leader (actor), authentic leadership (an influencing process between two or more actors), authentic followership (a process of engaging with, and responding to, influencing), and the authentic follower (actor). Despite widespread attention, the construct itself has not achieved maturity and it embodies criticism related to its conceptualisation and measurement (Iszatt-White & Kempster, 2018).…”