Authentic Leadership

In organizations, the search for meaning and cohesion leaders provide has become especially acute. The traditional sources of organizational cohesion have all become weaker. The old world was characterized by elaborate hierarchies, by more or less stable careers and by clear boundaries between organizations. All this has changed. Now hierarchies in most organizations are becoming flatter. Equally significant is the changing shape of careers. Not so long ago, the psychological contract involved movement up a relatively stable career ladder, often with one organization. Today individuals maximize their life opportunities through increasing their human capital knowing that their organization can offer little certainty for future. Equally organizational boundaries have begun to break down. Today organizations make alliances with suppliers, customers and sometimes competitors. All this has left modern societies with profound moral vacuum. Hence the demand and need for authentic leadership is increasing by the day across organizations.

Leadership must always be viewed as a relationship between the leader and the led. There are no universal characteristics of leadership. What works for one leader will not work for another. Those aspiring for leadership need to discover what it is about them that they can mobilize in a leadership context. They need to identify and deploy their own personal leadership assets. Effective leaders have an overarching sense of purpose together with sufficient self- knowledge of their potential leadership assets.

There are three fundamental axioms about leadership.

First, leadership is situational. What is required of the leader will always be influenced by the situation. History is full of examples of leaders who found their time & place, but whose qualities lost their appeal when things moved on. For example, some hard edged, cost cutting turn- around managers are unable to offer leadership when there is a need to build. But their more adaptable colleagues adjust to shifting agendas and carry their teams with them. The ability to observe and understand existing situations, that is, situation sensing, is key to leadership. This involves a mixture of sensory and cognitive abilities. Effective leaders pick up important situational signals. They are able to tune in to the organizational frequency to understand what is going on beneath the surface. Effective leaders not only read and understand the situation but through their interactions they construct alternative contexts to those which they initially inherit. They use personal leadership assets to reframe situations.

Second, leadership is non –hierarchical. Hierarchy alone is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the exercise of leadership. Great organizations have leaders at all levels. Successful organizations seek to build leadership capability widely and give people the opportunity to exercise it.

Third, leadership is relational. Leadership is always a social construct that is recreated by the relationship between the leader and those that they aspire to lead. The insistence of on the relational nature of leadership does not mean that these relationships are necessarily harmonious- they may well be edgy- but they are about leaders knowing how to excite followers to become great performers. Besides wanting feelings of excitement and personal significance from their leaders, followers look for leaders who are authentic. Authenticity is integral to the relationship between leaders and followers.