To explain the meaning of the diagram above, Authentic Leaders strive to consistently observe the following principles in their leadership practice:

1. A well developed self-awareness
2. An openness and transparency in dealing with others.
3. A genuine concern for the welfare and development of their team members.
4. A feeling of personal accountability and responsibility for the welfare of team members, care recipients and the organisation to which they belong.

Authentic leaders are open, curious, and committed to learning because Authentic leadership doesn’t come naturally to most people. We must work hard to achieve above-the-line thinking and behaviours. But when we do, above-the-line behaviour looks like taking ownership, accountability, and responsibility for one’s actions.

The most important job of an authentic leader is to recognise their above-the-line and below-the-line thinking so that they know how their behaviour impacts others. This requires great self-awareness. By recognising a lack of above-the-line behaviours, leaders can shift their thinking from below-the-line to above-the-line thinking and, importantly, develop their teams to do similarly. Authentic leaders are committed to furthering the quest for greater authenticity and ethicality of those currently in leadership roles or aspiring to achieve leadership roles in healthcare or social care.

At ATL we strive to make these principles evident in all of our courses.

Bill George who is credited as the creator of Authentic Leadership Theory in 2004 asserted that a leader authentically emphasises building legitimacy through honest relationships and ethical actions that, in turn, maximise the efforts of others to achieve the goals set.

George also noted that there are five dimensions of Authentic Leaders:

• Pursue and display purpose and direction with a passion so people want to follow, thus demonstrating the purpose of leadership.
• Practice solid values. George asserts that if one is not perceived to have integrity, there will be no basis for trust, adversely affecting followership(1).
• Authentic leaders are said to "lead with the heart" and engage the hearts of those they serve, aligning their interests with those of those they lead. An authentic leader requires empathy and compassion for the people they work with and the courage to make difficult decisions.
• Authentic leaders establish enduring relationships built on connectedness and a shared purpose of working together towards a common goal.

Demonstrating self-discipline is a key behaviour of authentic leaders to produce results. Authentic leaders take full responsibility for outcomes and hold others accountable for their performance. Interestingly, George and Sims later 2007 refined their description of authentic leaders' behaviour to be consistent with their personality and core values. The core values are honesty, ethicality, and practicality. 

Authentic Leadership Principles - What does the literature say?

The literature demonstrates an increasing interest in developing leaders who abandon self-interest while improving the employee work experience and organisational performance (1, 2). The 'servant leadership' approach epitomises this doctrine. Servant leadership focuses on accomplishing shared visions and goals by developing employees to their fullest potential. Servant leadership promotes greater leader self-awareness, an internalised moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency of leaders working with followers, fostering positive self-development (3).

Servant leadership stems from relying on the primary desire to serve (4-7). Although there is agreement on the basic concept of servant leadership, the characteristics and behaviours of servant leadership in the literature are indeterminate and ambiguous (8). Servant leaders are motivated by the needs of others over self-interest. They place themselves as servants in their relationship with their followers (7, 9). This mindset is quite different from traditional leadership approaches. Servant leadership emphasises personal integrity and long-term relationships with employees outside the organisation, serving whole communities and society (10).

The dominant influence of servant leadership results from the favourable relationships and referent power built upon subordinate trust, loyalty, respect and satisfaction with their leaders, derived from an employee-centred culture established by servant leaders (11). Servant leaders shift authority to the followers; therefore, they are non-reliant on formal or institutional power to achieve the outcomes set. Secondly, servant leaders positively affect the least privileged in society; servant leaders want to understand if the followers will benefit or, at least, will not be further deprived. If inequalities and social injustices exist, a servant leader tries to remove them (12).

Authentic Leadership is a leadership style that falls within the Servant Leadership category. Historically, Authentic Leadership theory was founded in ancient Greek philosophy, which emphasised that authenticity is a construct that embodies being in control of one's life through the Delphic maxim of "know thyself" (13). Authentic leadership became known in the literature in the 1960s to describe how an organisation reflects itself authentically through leadership (14).

The literature describes Authentic leadership as leader behaviour that defines the leadership role within an organisation (15). Others argue that it applies to the entire organisation, meaning that all in the organisation are authentic. as if they were a single entity through their responses to responsibility ascribed within the organisation or their reactions to uncertainty and innate creativity (16). Authentic leaders are mission-driven George (17). Further, authentic leaders are persuasive in asserting that authentic leaders create greater value than those more financially oriented George and Sims (18).

A synthesis of the literature holds the following principles true of authentic leaders:

Authentic leaders emphasise building the leader's legitimacy through honest relationships with followers with a sense of purpose, knowing what they are about and where they are headed (20).

Authentic leaders value followers' input, built on an ethical foundation (18).

Authentic leaders are positive and truthful, promote openness, and build trust with followers (21).

Authentic leaders have a purpose that manifests itself as passion. Passionate people are interested in what they are doing, inspired and intrinsically motivated, and care about their work (20). They generate enthusiastic support from followers to improve individual and team performance (22).

For each of these dimensions of authentic leadership, related characteristics need to be evident for a leader to be effective. These characteristics are that authentic leaders behave and are perceived to behave with purpose and passion (18).

Moreover, authentic leaders live their values, which is important as others determine a leader's value through their behaviour. They help others see their work's value and deeper purpose and create enduring and genuine relationships through connections. Importantly, authentic leaders behave with self-discipline and consistency and convert their values into consistent actions on which others can rely.

 The characteristics described above mean that authentic leaders display self-awareness, which is the ongoing process of reflection and re-examination by the leader of personal strengths, weaknesses, and values, signifying that the leader does not stray from their core beliefs. They subscribe to the open sharing of their thoughts and beliefs.

Authentic leaders subscribe to relational transparency, which is the open sharing of the leader's thoughts and beliefs balanced by a minimal exhibition of inappropriate emotions. Moreover, authentic leaders practice balanced processing, which is related to actively seeking opposing viewpoints and giving them fair consideration. They have an internalised moral perspective where the leader adheres to a positive ethical foundation in relationships and decisions and is resistant to outside pressures (18, 20, 23).

REFERENCE LIST

The numbers relate to the citations in the frames above and serve as a list of additional readings for those interested.

1. George B. Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. 1. Aufl.;1st; ed. New York, NY: Jossey-Bass [Imprint]; 2004.

2. Rossi J. Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others Through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion2005; 59(10):[95 p.].

3. Walumbwa FO, Avolio BJ, Gardner WL, Wernsing TS, Peterson SJ. Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure†. Journal of Management. 2007;34(1):89-126.

4. Russell RF. The role of values in servant leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. 2001;22(2):76-84.

5. Block P. Stewardship: choosing service over self-interest. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers; 2013.

6. Covey SR. Principle-centered leadership. 1st Free Press trade Ed. London ;New York;: Simon & Schuster; 1992.

7. Greenleaf RK. Servant leadership: a journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. New York: Paulist Press; 1991.

8. Russell RF, Gregory Stone A. A review of servant leadership attributes: developing a practical model. Leadership & Organization Development Journal. 2002;23(3):145-57.

9. Carrigan H. The soul of the firm - Pollard, CW. NEW YORK: Bowker Magazine Group Cahners Magazine Division; 1996. p. 100-.

10. Liden RC, Wayne SJ, Zhao H, Henderson D. Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measure and multi-level assessment. The Leadership Quarterly. 2008;19(2):161-77.

11. Rachmawati AW, Lantu DC. Servant Leadership Theory Development & Measurement. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2014;115:387-93.

12. Graham JW. Leadership, Moral Development, and Citizenship Behavior. Business Ethics Quarterly. 2015;5(1):43-54.

13. Novicevic MM, Harvey MG, Ronald M, Brown-Radford JA. Authentic Leadership: A Historical Perspective. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies. 2016;13(1):64-76.

14. Gardner WL, Cogliser CC, Davis KM, Dickens MP. Authentic leadership: A review of the literature and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly. 2011;22(6):1120-45.

15. Seeman M. Status and Identity: The Problem of Inauthenticity. The Pacific Sociological Review. 1966;9(2):67-73.

16. van Aken JE. Design Science and Organization Development Interventions. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. 2016;43(1):67-88.

17. George W. Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. 1. Aufl.;1st; ed. New York, NY: Jossey-Bass [Imprint]; 2004.

18. George W, Sims P. True North: discover your authentic leadership. 1st.;1. Aufl.;1; ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2007.

19. George B, Sims P, McLean AN, Mayer D. Discovering your authentic leadership. Harv Bus Rev. 2007;85(2):129-30, 32-8, 57.

20. Northouse PG. Leadership: theory and practice. Eighth ed. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc; 2019.

21. Farid T, Iqbal S, Khan A, Ma J, Khattak A, Naseer Ud Din M. The Impact of Authentic Leadership on Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Affective- and Cognitive-Based Trust. Front Psychol. 2020;11:1975.

22. Thacker K. The art of authenticity: tools to become an authentic leader and your best self. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley; 2016.

23. Walumbwa FO, Mayer DM, Wang P, Wang H, Workman K, Christensen AL. Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader-member exchange, self-efficacy, and organisational identification. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes. 2011;115(2):204-13.