The Nature of Authentic Leadership

 

Leadership is a mysterious and dynamic complexity that is a never ending journey of discovery (Schaeffer, 2002).  There is a difficult and elusive blending of character traits and techniques that gives a leader multiple options to reach a desired goal.  This includes possessing a strong understanding with oneself, which requires significant and continual introspective analysis.  Incorporating and living out this knowledge requires a leader to find a balance that reflects strong emotional intelligence.  On top of all these important traits, the aim of this paper is to discuss the foundation of authentic leadership, which is the ability to understand, address, and resolve both internal and external challenges effectively.

Leadership is about influencing human interactions (Ignaitus, 2013). Just because one method has worked well previously does not ensure that it will always be the right course of action, hence its dynamic nature.  One underlying trait that all leaders must embrace to be effective is living out their ideal self (Hill, 2015).  Authenticity is critical when directing others as every individual is complex and ever-changing.  To pursue one's ideal self requires constant self reflection and the assessment of others.  While this is a difficult and oftentimes painful journey,  these values reflect the evolving nature of leadership and how individuals must pursue and adapt their skills.

This paper will begin to explore this topic by first examining where it has its origin, which includes leadership over oneself and emotional intelligence.  This beginning is critical as it will explain the foundation that influences every facet of a leader's character.  From there it will examine successful leadership traits as it relates to dealing with others such as relationships and communication, conflict management, creating and sustaining a culture, building a team, and having the courage to act. 

Method

Leadership and Self

In order to be an effective and influential leader today, one must begin by making an honest and authentic assessment of oneself (Kruse, 2013).  This is a difficult process because making a sober judgment on our actions can be humbling and discouraging. Unfortunately in the world today, many leaders present images of themselves being faultless and having altruistic motives.  Despite this presentation, insincerity from these individuals is quickly identified and lose creditability as a result.  While society as a whole tends to admire the bold from afar, the more familiar it becomes with its true identity and motives.  Because of this scrutiny, leaders must constantly evaluate themselves and how others perceive them.

To err is human, however, and the strongest and most influential leaders today have undergone significant transformation during their lifetime (Satell, 2014).  These admired individuals began their leadership in one form or fashion with contemplating what matters most and the values that they want to embrace.  Creating a personal credo of the values and integrity that they want to emulate creates a foundation with which they can base all of their decisions (Ojalvo, 2011).  The more specific the list of traits, the greater clarity it can provide to making decisions and interacting with other individuals.

Becoming the leader that one aspires to be requires strong discipline through constant self assessment.  As it turns out, leadership is a direct result of one’s life story and is not the result of being born with any particular set of traits or characteristics (George, Sims, McLean, & Mayer, 2007).  This self judgment must be unbiased and weigh the events, circumstances, and results in light of their true values.  The more this practice is done, the easier it becomes which builds stronger character.  

Leaders must be cautious, however, that they do not become complacent in their self assessment.  This can give a leader a false sense of security that their every move is correct and that the right way.  Just because past success is achieved does not give a leader the right to forgo analyzing their future decisions and motives.

Leaders must make a conscious effort to take responsibility for their thoughts and actions.  For them, having a high internal locus of control is superior to a high external locus of control (Nguyen, 2013).  Generally speaking, people have a keen assessment of who takes responsibility for their actions and who passes the blame.  For a leader to take responsibility for a problem, despite his or her role demonstrates a concern for doing the right thing and not placing the blame.

Successful leadership of oneself also includes taking control of one's life through a disciplined focus on achievement (Starks, 2012).  This applies to both personal and professional goals.  Of course, filtering this through and basing it upon a leader's guiding values is critical.  The effects of writing down goals and objectives versus simply thinking generally about them are profound.  This list should not be perceived as written in stone, as circumstances and opportunities change.  It should, however, provide a vision and direction with which a leader can strive for personal and professional growth.

Emotional Intelligence

Having a high emotional intelligence will be critical for a leader to monitor their own and other’s feelings.  Specifically, it will assist in four key areas: “perception, appraisal, and expression of emotions; emotion facilitation of thinking; understanding and analyzing emotional information, employing emotional knowledge; and regulation of emotions (Mortan, Andreea, Ripoll, & Carvalho, 2014).  Maintaining an authentic perception and appraisal of one’s actions will allow a leader to make wise and calculated decisions.  

Resisting the urge to react to circumstances by employing high emotional intelligence is the first step to lead proactively.  This includes strong control of emotions that have the ability to influence decisions and words that can negatively affect oneself and others.  This emotional intelligence has been shown to lead to empowering behaviors that significantly influences personal outcomes ( Liu, Wong, Fu 2012).  Once a leader takes responsibility of this mindset, then that individual is prepared to lead and influence others.  Mistakes will be made, but by remaining humble and acknowledging errors, a leader will be able to effectively influence others.

Learning how to lead oneself and others effectively requires an understanding of the types of power a leader can use.  These are coercive, utility, and legitimate (Covey, 1992).  Coercive power refers to using punitive techniques or threats that will result if directions or orders are not followed.  In essence, it is ruling with fear.  The effectiveness from this tactic is very limited because if followers do not care about the punishment or poor results, then the leader has no influence.  The potential for this type of leadership to backfire is high and rarely sustainable.

Next is utility power which essentially an exchange between a follower and a leader. There exists a mutually beneficial relationship where each party exchange services or words with the underlying promise that the other party will reciprocate with what is desired (Covey, 1992).  This type of leadership is commonly used today, but it’s effectiveness is limited by the desire of each party to receive what they truly want.  The greater the desire, the higher the probability that a either party will adhere to their responsibility.  This type of leadership is more sustainable than coercive, but the chance of failure increases if a desired reward is replaced with something that the other party cannot provide.

Finally, Covey discusses the most effective type of influence which is legitimate power (Covey, 1992).  This type is rare to witness in the world today.  It is based on an underlying belief that what is trying to be accomplished is more important than either the leader or the follower.  In these examples, the leader is trusted, respected, and honored.  The leader also exhibits these traits to his or her followers.  This is the most effective type of leadership and enables both the leader and follower to accomplish much more than originally believed to be possible.

Discussion

Relationships and Communication

For a leader to effectively lead a team, strong and trustworthy relationships must first be established.  This is derived through open communication and interactions which communicate goals and expectations that create a culture.  These relationships are the building blocks for all community activities and the means for achieving an objective (Axner, 1993).

Having an open relationship with everyone involved in a team is essential.  This allows the leader to be creditable, well-connected, and well-informed (Veron, 2011).  If a leader were to ignore surrounding circumstances, then the trust of the team would quickly be lost.  

Seventy percent of an individual's time is spent communicating.  Typically, forty five percent of this time is spent listening and thirty percent speaking (Adler, Rosenfeld, Proctor, 2001).  Unfortunately, many leaders believe that they are at their best when speaking and sharing their opinions.  In contrast to this, active listening demonstrates an engaged mindset is concerned with the subject that is being communicated, as well as the wellbeing of the individual. 

Poor listening skills can drastically hurt relationships and damage the credibility of the leader.  This can include judging people, thinking in advance what someone is going to say, or twisting a message to mean what a leader wants to hear (Bone, 2011).  While a leader may occasionally struggle with some or all of these areas, they must recognize their natural tendencies and actively work to overcome them.

To build strong and sustainable relationships, there must be clear and concise communication.  Whenever this occurs, the listening party must first hear the message, then interpret and evaluate what is being communicated, and then respond carefully (Bone, 2011).  Throughout each of these steps, both parties must make a conscious effort to avoid the pitfalls mentioned previously.  These are toxic to both organizations and relationships.  

Leaders must form relationships based on genuine respect, a sincere interest in seeing others succeed, and an appreciation for a variety of contributions to a goal (Axner, 1993).  It can be easy to single out individuals for specific successes, but great caution must be made.  Employee morale is a fickle subject and praise of one person can mean ignoring others contributions.  For this reason, leaders must be quick to give praise and recognize the variety of ways that people contribute to a goal (Hames 2011).

Other ways for leaders to build strong relationships is to build a culture of trust and have constant communication with everyone (Hames 2011).  To build this culture, leaders must always avoid talking about others disparagingly.  Even if there is a consensus about a shortcoming of an individual, it must not be mentioned.  This isn't to imply that a leader should not challenge an individual to improve upon a weakness.  To the contrary, a leader will demonstrate greater care for someone by respectfully addressing a problem and helping them overcome it.  Creating a culture that encourages a team and deals with problems directly and honesty will create a better work environment for the team and greater respect for the leader.

Conflict

One of the most normative aspects of human nature and interaction is the presence of conflict (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch 2011).  This manifests itself in a variety of forms which can include a difference of opinions, miscommunications, unrealistic or changing goals, or threats (Stiles, 2011)  It can also be either open or passive.  Although open conflict is the most visible, it can be the latter that can be the most devastating.  How an individual or team deals with the unavoidable phenomenon determines the likelihood of success for whatever objective they hope to achieve.  

Conflict can either be identity based or interest based (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch, 2011).  Identity based conflicts are typically the more serious of the two for a leader to address because they deal fundamental issues that individuals cannot compromise.  To deal effectively with this type of conflict, a leader must first identify the root cause of the problem.  This can be difficult to discover because often times, there are many other symptoms that link back to this underlying issue.  Listening skills are essential in this fact gathering phase.

Identity based conflicts deal with fundamental issues to who they are as individuals (Porter-O’Grady, 2011).  They can include values, religion, heritage, culture and family and can be perceived as a threat to their very reason for existence.  Building trust around this issue will take more time and greater patience when compared to interest based conflicts.  Caution must be used from all parties to avoid  judgment to have a chance of resolution.  Finding solutions to these types of conflicts can require a great deal of creativity because the fundamental values at hand will not change.

Finding solutions to interest based conflicts will also require creativity, but also with the knowledge that these conflicts can change over time.  Discovering hidden information, agendas, and interests is critical throughout the resolution process (Porter-O’Grady & Malloch 2011).  Once all of the relevant information is known, a leader has a much greater chance of gain the support of the opposing parties.  

Once the root cause of a conflict has been determined, it is critical that the leader set the example by giving each party control, recognition, affection, and respect (Belak, 2004).  With the term control, it is important to stress that although a leader may have authority over individuals, this term applies to creating an environment where people willingly take responsibility for their actions.  Allowing this has been shown to lower psychological stresses and creates a more favorable environment for people to work together and reconcile differences (Vitelli, 2013).

Recognition and affection both point to the need of the leader to communicate appreciation for the contributions of all parties involved within the dispute (Belak, 2004).  Without this, the organization stands no chance to achieve its mission.  Again, a leader must exercise caution to ensure dispensing praise equitably because the opposing parties will be defensive and quick to dismiss the contributions of the other party.

Finally, respect for differing opinions must be applied not only throughout the conflict resolution process, but in every interaction throughout the organization or team (Belak, 2004).  Exercising this value early and often will greatly assist whenever conflict arises as it will provide the leader with greater creditability.  If either of the opposing parties believes that his or her opinion is not respected, then there is strong potential for the unresolved conflict to grow even greater.  

Contrary to popular belief, conflict has the potential to enhance a team by leveraging the strengths of a variety of opinions (Stiles, 2011).  Maintaining a harmonious team may seem ideal, but this can be deceiving and allow problems to linger.  Conflict has the ability to bring the truth to the surface and force teams to face reality.  Successful leaders are able to harness these different viewpoints and ideas to move an agenda forward (Smith 2014).  

Creating and Sustaining a Culture

A company's culture plays a central role in its ability to accomplish its goals and objectives.  This mindset and binding values within an organization contributes directly to employee involvement, consistency, and adaptability (Johnson, 2015).  How a team responds to challenges or conflict is heavily influenced by culture.  Laying the proper foundation requires insight and principled discipline.

Human ingenuity has the potential to be a company’s greatest asset (Warrell, 2015).  This innovation has typically been sparked by an intense curiosity where questions are welcomed and answers can be explored.  To encourage this mindset, leaders must ensure that fear, complacency, and disengagement are avoided at all costs (Warrell, 2015).  Leaders are able to set an example by displaying these traits and acknowledging that they do not have all the answers.

For a leader to create an engaging and encouraging culture requires an open mindset that recognizes, embraces, praises, and leverages all varieties of talents (Brio, 2014).  Employee recognition programs and employee reviews are excellent methods to promote a positive and creative culture.  These opportunities to highlight performance must be made carefully because of the possibility for others efforts and talents to be perceived as less significant.  Praising everyone equitability is a delicate balance because a leader needs their encouragement to be valued and not insincere.  

As problems become more complex, the easier it is to understand that “homogeneity is the enemy of truth” (O’Grady & Malloch, 2011).  If everyone embraced issues with the same frame of mind and background, then it would be impossible to explore a subject with sufficient depth to discover unique and novel solutions.  As leaders pursue this diversity, it should be expected that conflict will arise.  This is the moment that leaders will be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.   

Assuming the proper foundation has been established, it is at this junction that a healthy culture brings stability instead of turmoil.  Instead of bitterness and jealousy, successful leaders will of instilled values of respect and mutual appreciation.  Although these differences of opinions will cause friction, the hope is that these ideas and people will help refine the best ideas for the organization.

As mentioned earlier, listening skills are essential for a leader.  This talent will allow a leader to be engaged with his or her team and gain a better understanding of what is needed to improve and challenge the mission.  Beyond this and to get to the heart of an organization’s culture, is the importance of having a candid and honest team (Grenny, 2014).  

Getting beyond the pretense in a company can be difficult because employees fear of retaliation, but a journey that must be made.  A successful leader will accomplish this by consistently providing honest feedback while actively pursuing answers to tough questions (Grenny, 2014).

If a leaders successfully instills proper listening skills within each member of his or her team, then everyone will benefit.  These skills go beyond words and also includes reading and understanding nonverbal cues (Giang, 2013).  As listening abilities improve within the organizational culture, so will the internal bonds within the group which will help them understand and fulfill their unique roles.  Creating and encouraging a culture that understands how each member is connected, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, will build a team and culture that will last (Llopis, 2012).

Coaching, Developing Talent, and Building a Team

To form a strong and productive team, a leader must first gain the trust of each individual by establishing a rapport (Llopis, 2012).  To accomplish this, they must develop the mindset of a coach.  This point of view seeks to develop talented individuals into a more robust and cohesive unit.  It challenges people to push their own boundaries, yet is patient when failure occurs.  In addition to this, it forces people to recognize both the talents of others and their own shortcomings.

It is inevitable that conflict will arise within a team or between them.  Taking a diplomatic approach to these situations is crucial which includes exercising good judgment and implementing consensus building (Llopis, 2012).  A wise leader will know which battles to engage in and which to ignore.  At the heart of this is knowing what moves to organization or team closer to its goal and what pulls it away.  

Consensus building is a critical for leaders to build and challenge a team (Sharma, 2008).  Engaging the stakeholders early is critical to accomplish this task.  If individuals feel that a leader is disengaged or doesn’t value their opinion, then the potential of failure is increased.  While much of the attention should be on external stakeholders and how the organization interacts with them, internal stakeholders should hold just as much importance (Sharma, 2008).  Constant communication will expose a leader to a variety of ideas and problems and provide opportunities to leverage strengths and address conflicts.

For a leader to develop talent properly, each individual must fully understand and believe in a shared vision and strategy (Hewson, 2013).  Presenting this vision consistently in a compelling and engaging manner will remind everyone, including the leader, of their goal. Furthermore, it will strongly influence behaviors, improve attitudes, and increase the degree with which people interact.  There is also a possibility that these reminders will spur creativity among the team and challenge each individual to grow personally and professionally.  

Furthermore, a coach makes his or her own personality and style clear to the team.  Maintaining consistency and adherence to this is paramount as the team will feel more confident to grow in their own abilities (Llopis, 2012).  A coaching mindset will also not fear calculated risks that fail because it will be rooted in strategic thinking.  Of course there will be disappointment, but this can also be used to bind the team together and enforce a more resilient attitude.

Reading the Signposts and the Courage to Act

There have been many fundamental changes with how the world operates today, with the healthcare industry being one of the most significant (Leonard, 2014).  Technological advances, globalization, and cultural shifts have all affected the landscape with which policies and strategies are created.  In order for a leader to capitalize on seismic shifts, he or she will need to anticipate where their industry is moving, the new challenges that will be faced, and solutions to capitalize on opportunities (Schoemaker, 2012).

Companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have all risen to power relatively quickly while capitalizing on emerging trends.  While society and business give high praise to these types companies, there is a misunderstanding or naivety about exactly how they became so dominant.  The rise of these companies is due to anticipating and preparing for a changing landscape.  While there were other dominant players that were already established, all of these powerful companies searched beyond the boundaries of current views, remained diligent and curious about many spheres of their business, and recognized potential changes before their competitors (Schoemaker, 2012).

Challenging the status quo is also critical for a leader to be perceived as a strategic thinker (Schoemaker, Krupp, Howland, 2013).  For a leader to improve upon this skill, simply asking the question “why” is a great start.  Careful consideration to the answers must be given because whenever a definitive and justified answers cannot be provided, that is an opportunity to explore further.

Once the proper questions have been asked, the answers must be interpreted, and proper adjustments must be made (Schoemaker, Krupp, Howland, 2012).  Action is necessary, but only to the degree that will address current and future needs properly.  There will always be an inherent risk to action whether it is too little, too much, or wrong all together.  A wise leader will monitor this continually and closely to ensure that the correct path is pursued.  

Behind all of this analysis and action, a leader must be courageous.  This will manifest itself by confronting challenges head-on, seeking feedback, saying what needs to be said, and holding others and oneself accountable for results (Tardanico, 2013).  Society gives high praise to people who lead transformational change, but this is a difficult and daunting task.  Inherent to this process is a high risk of failure.  

To be courageous, a leader must have a sound understanding of where a team stands and a passionate belief for where they need to be (Ryan, 2014).  Without a fundamental understanding of both the external and internal environment, a leader providing direction is the blind leading the blind.  There is no anticipation or preparation for the future, which is a disservice to the organization and no substance behind perceived courage.  Once a leader possesses this insight, however, then the correct preparation and foundation can be established to provide a greater likelihood for success (Tobak, 2013).   

 

Conclusion

     In closing, effective leadership can be an elusive goal with no clear path to direct success.  There are, however, many techniques and practices that are consistently utilized to reach this goal.  It begins with personal responsibility and leadership of oneself.  Before anyone has a chance at leading others,  he or she must take ownership of their thoughts, actions, and beliefs.  

Possessing a keen insight into human behavior and thought is also critical.  This includes motivating, retaining, and resolving conflicts among the team.  It is unfortunate today that so many leaders become consumed with the ends that they forget the means.  While the bottom line is most often analyzed and how a leader is judged by superiors, it is the responsibility of the leader to ensure that the team respects its members and is passionate for pursuing excellence.  Neglecting this will bring discouragement and cause a serious threat to whatever goal is being pursued.  

Leaders must always incorporate the human aspect into their decisions.  In its essence, leadership is about influence.  For a leader to maximize and improve whatever situation they encounter, requires going beyond spreadsheets and routines.  Taking a genuine interest for the team will include a common respect and appreciation for every individual.  Although this is a cumbersome and lengthy process, leadership will prove abundantly more effective.  

 

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