Authentic Leadership: Do the right thing while being yoursel

cpenuliar wrote:

An Authentic Leader uses everything that happens around them as an opportunity to learn more about themselves and others. As such, they continually develop their own self-awareness and understanding of others.

I agree with you. These opportunities can help all leaders to become better. It is true that continuous development of self-awareness and understanding can make you a great authentic leader. There are benefits of being an authentic leader. For me, it is an avenue where you can always be aware of yourself to make good decisions and actions. It can help you know more about yourself too wherein you can develop areas that needs to be managed through self-assessment. Another thing, it can help you avoid imbalances of the equilibrium. Relationships towards workmates can also be enhanced thus making a good and healthy environment.

What are the benefits of being an Authentic Leader?

Two things that I can think of right now, without being melo-dramatic by answering "love and honor," would be:

1. Amass Confidence from people
2. Established Integrity (hiding the ego for self-indulgence)

To be effective leaders of people, authentic leaders must first discover the purpose of their leadership. If they don't, they are at the mercy of their egos and narcissistic impulses. To discover their purpose, authentic leaders have to understand themselves and the passions that animate their life stories. (George B., 2006)

Having a high level of self-awareness, making objective assessment of a person’s strengths and weakness, acting in accordance with one’s morals and values, and being transparent and truthful in relationships with others, and having positive capacities of trust, hope, resilience and optimism makes one an authentic leader, according to Wong. The status of being an authentic leader can be reached when one is mature, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The advantage of this is that when one gets to reach that status, it is not the concerns of one’s self that he is preoccupied with but the concerns of the people that he serves.

I guess we all want to be authentic leaders. But it takes time, as these qualities are developed and improved over time.

1. The key distinction of authen-ticleaders is that they are anchoredby their own deep sense of self and know where they stand on important issues, values, and beliefs. Authenticleaders “stay their course and convey to others, often times throughtheir actions, not just words, what they represent interms of principles, values, and ethics.”

Avolio BJ, Gardner WL. Authentic leadership development: getting to theroot of positive forms of leadership. Leadersh Q. 2005;16:315-338.

2. As of now iconsider myself to be in the path of becoming an authentic leader. Because onecannot possess such qualities, it takes time to reach the level of maturity anauthentic leader has.
3. The ethics thatgoverns an authentic leader is the ethics that majority of us consider butmolded in accordance to his perception.

The benefits of Authentic Leadership include:

An individual continually grows. They creatively adjust to the conditions that are facing them.This process is sustainable and shapes culture.

People become more honest with themselves and those they are in contact. Developing higher levels of trust and goodwill towards each other. Hearts become involved not just minds.

An individual connects with and aligns decisions to their personal conscience. This means higher levels of ethics and personal integrity.

Leaders appreciate and utilise ‘difference versus sameness’. This fosters innovation and an ability to resolve conflict.

New memes (ways) of thinking develop. This provides an opportunity to view the world differently and solve issues of great complexity .

Parse (2008)Revering others is not just an ethical good or a virtue for members of the discipline of nursing to act upon; rather, it is a fundamental necessity for a member of a human science profession to clearly demonstrate. It requires fairness and honesty in being just and trusting human integrity.

http://www.ahigherself.com.au
Parse, R. R. (2008). The humanbecoming leading-following model.
Nursing Science Quarterly, 21, 369-375.

the benefits of being an authentic leader is that followers can practice democracy, they can say whatever he's thinking of. you can be true to yourself all the time as well as, to your followers. you can build harmony within and outside the workplace. by involving you followers in decision-making, both parties- you and the followers- learn from each other and can achieve personal and professional development.
i will be an authentic leader if i'll hold onto myself's talents, beliefs, morals, and desires. i know myself far better than anyone else. i could be one if i will gain trust from my followers. hear and address on what they will tell me. if i'll give their right to voice out what's in their minds as well as i would share my own thoughts and build a relationship that will last for long. in every decision, we should think and then act ethically for the benefit of all who are involved and will be involved.

Luthans and Avolio (2003) defined authentic leadership as “a process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and associates, fostering positive self-development” (p. 243). Authentic leaders are persons who are hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and transparent (Hannah et al., 2005). They operate consistently with values visible to others, focus on ethical or right things to do, take the lead even at personal risk, make the development of others a priority, and work to ensure that their communication is transparent and that others perceive it as intended (Avolio et al.,2004; May et al., 2003).

I think the benefits of being an authentic leader are to know yourself well, have the opportunity to be a person that can be trusted and to be a change agent to other person. There is this saying that “you can’t give what you don’t have”. And because of these benefits leader and its followers can have a better relationship with each other. I can see myself as an authentic leader if I can able to earn my followers’ trust, do the things which I think is right, ethical and morally accepted and to have a better relationship which can be the cause of building a healthy work environment not only for my people but also to those who are the recipients of care. For me, it’s not only the leaders ethics but also its followers. Authentic leadership can’t be a kind of leadership if it doesn’t have any followers. It depends on the leaders and followers on how they will act morally on the ethical issues that may be present in the nursing practice.

If this concept on authentic leadership is enhanced, it can lead nursing into new areas of improvement and inspire followers to stand by their leaders. Authentic leaders can use their influence to make individuals accomplish tasks needed to make health care environment better for the clients. A working relationship based on trust and transparency will work in any kind of work setting and will strengthen the bond between leader and follower resulting to favorable outcomes.
As a leader in my own right, my past experiences, the great leaders I encounter and my sense of spirituality were all part of how I developed my sense of awareness and how it made me into the leader that I am today. I should say that Each of us having experiences different from the others makes us Authentic leaders in our respective fields.

in my own opinion, other than the theorist's notion of authentic leader, each of us has our own belief and standard of what an authentic leader is. we may claim, that we have encountered such in our previous experience though upon analysis, prior criteria from various researches that define authenticity of a leader may not seem to be ALL present...,still, it didn't hold us back from our belief that this one was indeed an effective or good leader...

I'd like to share my experience of how i benefited from an authentic leader believing that he was someone like that, rather than telling you of the benefit of BECOMING an authentic leader... i guess, the plan of actions were more visible if we like our leader as in our case... we were able to come up with decisions that the group agreed with no hesitation since our leader was able to facilitate and initiate our meetings... Planning and actions are made with realistic expectation of outcomes... Conflict is less to occur and if such occur, it was able to solve immediately...

As for myself, literally speaking, i've been a leader of various group works... i really don't feel comfortable answering the second question whether i see my self being an authentic leader, or could i say I've been someone like that before, or at this moment, at what state of authenticity am i now... because honestly speaking, i would say that i've been a good one! But going back with the prior definition of how it takes to be an authentic leader, i think it's quite hard to be like that.

i have read one article from sage publication which involve trans-cultural nursing, and it was mentioned that although we have universally accepted moral ethics, each tradition and nation has its own means of linking such action of being morally/ethically accepted in their own point of view as influenced by its culture...
so i can say that authenticity varies from nation to nation, culture to culture, and person to person...

George, B. (2003) describes an authentic leader as an individual in a position of responsibility who is genuine, trustworthy, reliable, and believable. This description is consistent with the AACN definition of the term authentic, which proposes that leaders who are authentic "conform to fact" or speak the truth and therefore are worthy of trust, reliance, or belief (AACN, 2005). Personally, I can say that by simply being true to myself in leading a certain group of people, authentic leadership has already been practiced. Furthermore, what is important to me is the relationship that one can build while leading. Relationship to the co-workers as well as relationship to the patients is what I think should be the essence in being an authentic leader.

Authenticity in leadership is centrally concerned with leadership practice that is ethical and moral. Such leadership is educative in its intent and outcomes. It is based on three ethics, namely: the ethic of authenticity; the ethic of responsibility; and the ethic of presence (Duignan, P. A., 2004). Authentic Leaders cannot be understood without a moral connotation due to their high level of self-awareness. Self-awareness is the key component of this type of leadership. Thus, awareness of one’s feelings, thoughts and motives lead to ethical reasoning and self-regulatory processes of a leader herself. It is the ethics of the leader not the organization that authentic leadership is pertaining to.


References:

Duignan, P. A. (2004). Authentic Leadership for Authentic Learning. Acel Travelling Scholar. Available at: http://online.cesanet.adl.catholic.edu.au/docushare/dsweb/Get/Version-7724/AUTHENTIC%20LEADERSHIP%20FOR%20AUTHENTIC%20LEARNING.pdf

George B. (2003). Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass

American Association of Critical-Care Nurses. (2005). AACN standards for establishing and sustaining healthy work environments: a journey to excellence. Available at:http://www.aacn.org/AACN/pubpolcy.nsf/vwdoc/workenv.

The benefit of being an authentic leader is that they value and respect other people that is within the healthcare setting. That everyone is treated in a fair manner. There is a strong sense of trust between the leader and the affiliates. The individual would feel that she/he physical and emotionally safe because it is considered part of that environment. It engages the followers in decision making and personal and professional growth. Because of there is a positive atmosphere that is reflected by the leader therefore it creates a healthy environment both for the patient and the nurse (Shirey, 2006)

It was secondary level that I used to become a leader in a group. But becoming a leader doesn’t mean that I have to dictate others of what they should do, but instead I let them choose what they want for their part. Because they choose the part they wanted makes them become capable of doing it thus it develops a trusting environment within the group. But sometimes I have to moderate the situation if there are already conflicting issues that arise. During my younger years, I have the same experience but during those times being the authority, I direct certain works to the group. The group now tends to follow the instructions since I was in the position to give the assigned task. So as I grew, being just the leader also begun to grow or evolve from being a leader to being an authentic one, which I saw in myself.

The ethics that is being concerned in the literature is the ethic of the authentic leader itself, since according to Avolio et al (2004) suggested that authentic leaders are able to enhance follower attitudes. Since it also focuses on leader behaviors, postulated to more closely relate to follower responses. Leaders are expected to engage in ethical and transparent decision-making.

Leadership today is very different from leadership in our parents' generation. The old style of "top down" management just doesn't work anymore. Workers generally want to be fully engaged, and committed to what they're doing. They want to feel as if their work matters. And they want to believe in the people who are in charge.

It is suggested that ‘Authentic Leadership’ is different to other leadership theories such as Situational Leadership or Charismatic Leadership in so much as the focus within Authentic Leadership is on leader self-awareness and ethical decision making.

Luthans and Avolio (2003) defined authentic leadership as “a process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and associates, fostering positive self-development” (p. 243). Authentic Leadership links who you are as a person (your beliefs and values), with how you lead and manage within your organization (your thinking and behaviors).

Different theorists conceptualize Authentic Leadership slightly differently. However, all agree that self awareness, self regulation and making the right ethical choices are critical components of it.

These aspects can be conceptualized into a model which links a leader’s thoughts; their Self Awareness and their Ethical Virtue, with their subsequent actions; their Self Regulation and their Ethical Actions.

Self Awareness
Understanding one’s thoughts, beliefs and values and how these influence one’s mental and emotional states. Being aware of the effect that we have on others and understanding how our words and actions may affect others to the extent of having the meta-cognitive capacity to be able to predict one’s own thinking processes and subsequent behaviors and those of other people.

Self Regulation
The conscious and deliberate control of one’s thoughts and those subsequent behaviors that occur as a consequence of one’s thinking and self awareness. Actively managing one’s physical, emotional and mental states. Taking a multiple perspective approach to problem solving and decision making.

Ethical Virtue
One’s ethical principles as a leader. One’s internal sense of integrity and of what is the ‘right’ thing to do in any given circumstance. Viewing ethics as a conscious choice rather than a compromise. Believing that one’s leadership role includes an ethical responsibility to peers and subordinates and to the wider community.

Ethical Actions
Actively displaying ethical integrity in one’s resultant decision making and actions that are consistent with one’s Ethical Virtue in all professional spheres. Being prepared to share one’s ethical stance with others. Displaying ethical courage and being ethically steadfast in the face of dissent from others.

Authentic Leaders are congruent in that what they say, and their subsequent actions, is consistent. They “walk their talk”. They “say what they mean and they mean what they say”. And they say it simply. In a work environment, Authentic Leaders are ethically sound. They are highly principled regarding their ethical integrity and have a reputation for being courageous in the face of what they consider to be unethical decision making on the part of others.

An Authentic Leader uses everything that happens around them as an opportunity to learn more about themselves and others. As such, they continually develop their own self-awareness and understanding of others.


Guide questions:
1. What are the benefits of being an Authentic Leader?
2. How do you see yourself as an Authentic Leader?
3. If Authertic Leadership is majorly concerned with ethics, whose ethics are they?





Avolio, B.J., Luthans, F. (2006). The High Impact Leader.
George, B. (2007). True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership.
Goffee, R., Jones, G. (2006). Why should anyone be led by you? – What it takes to be an authentic leader.