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EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Authentic leadership
=
good leadership
=
corporate success?
Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as that. But recent research
findings are unambiguous: authentic leadership, and
a leadership style that encourages authentic behaviour in
employees, can help organisations become more effective.
Equally, leadership without an authentic stance can cause
lasting damage in the corporate environment.
An authentic stance does not mean laying bare one’s inner
life and indulging, without restraint, all one’s moods, emotions
and difficult personality traits – as some publications
on authenticity would have us believe. Rather, it is about
adopting a FUNDAMENTAL STANCE (cf. van den Bosch &
Taris, 2014):
that promotes harmony between managers’
actions, inner values, and personal convictions
(‘authentic action’);
that helps managers resist to bow to external
pressure (‘avoidance of self-alienation’);
There is much evidence for the positive influence of authentic
behaviour. The present study – carried out by goetzpartners,
Förster und Netzwerk, and Prof. Matthias Spitzmüller (Smith
School of Business, Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada) –
shows which factors promote authentic behaviour in companies
as well as what obstacles to authentic behaviour exist and
how they can be overcome.
Recent research findings underscore that authentic managers
come across as more charismatic and are more successful at
steering employees through change. This is especially true of
those employees who are generally more critical of management:
the effect of authenticity on employees’ attitudes towards
their line managers is strongest in such cases. According
to other studies, authentic leadership has a positive effect on
the acceptance of mistakes and, consequently, on the performance
of teams of employees. Most importantly, authenticity
can serve as a moral compass that prevents employees from
breaking rules or behaving unethically (Spitzmüller & Ilies,
2010 and Cianci, Hannah, Roberts & Tsakumis, 2014).
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that enables managers to actively steer their
own actions rather than having those actions
dictated by others (‘avoidance of external
influence’);
that therefore projects credibility and reliability.