By Mostafa Sayyadi and Michael J. Provitera
Many leaders simply manage and it is the opposite. Leadership falls into the functions of management and is at the core of being a great manager. Without great leadership, a manager is stagnant and only concerned with the status quo. Leadership, being the core of management, is crucial to an organization’s success—-both from a performance and management level. In the absence of effective leadership, companies lose the required direction to achieve a high degree of competitiveness, and cannot implement a successful change in order to adapt to today’s uncertain business environment—-they simply resort to managing the status quo. Executives have found that leadership is critical to business success and has relative value in organizations throughout the UK and the rest of the developed countries.
One vital step to defining leadership is to discern between leadership and management. A prominent scholar by the name of Warren Bennis in his book, On Becoming a Leader, identified the difference between leadership and management. 1 He asserts that leaders acquire their competencies through education, while managers become familiar with management practices through training. Some firms promote people based upon tenure or length of employment, acquired system knowledge, or satisfice by selecting the best player at the time even if there may be better managers for the job both inside and outside the company. While other companies develop people into great managers and great leaders by educating them and applying what they learn. In comparison, he highlights that education is more active, broad, flexible, experimental, synthetic, and strategic compared to training which is narrow, passive, and rote. This distinction denotes the differences between leaders and managers.
Existing leadership models could have reasonably developed some ways of appraising an effective leader versus an ineffective leader, and also identified a number of variables potentially affecting the effectiveness of leadership. When looking at these leadership models from a new perspective, chief executive officers should understand these models but place more emphasis on applying what works best for them in their current work environment. Many executives wonder what academic writers are trying to explain via models. There really is not much difference except that a theoretical framework has been tried and tested while a model may be an application that leaders can learn and teach others. Various models are presented in an attempt to portray the concept of leadership. However, there have been several shifts in the thought of leadership, and subsequently, newer approaches to leadership emerged leading up to the emergence of the authentic leadership model.
Seven elements have been determined for the authentic leadership model: positive psychological capital, positive moral perspective, self-awareness, leadership process/behavior management, self-regulation, follower development, and organizational context. The first element refers to the idea that authentic leaders develop a positive work climate in which followers more effectively contribute to a firm’s performance and competitive advantage. The second element is about the authentic decision-making process, which identifies moral dilemmas, and then evaluates and selects the best available alternative to be implemented. In the third element, authentic leaders continually understand their own unique talents, strengths, sense of purpose, core values, beliefs, and desires. The fourth element relates to distinguishing the processes and mechanisms whereby an authentic leader influences his/her followers. Authentic leaders can effectively influence their followers through taking various processes such as a positive social exchange. The fifth element is self-awareness and self-regulation by which authentic leaders align their values with their interactions and actions. In this element, a strong alignment can be achieved in values and goals by using a transparent process between leaders and followers. Then, in the sixth element, an authentic leader takes a coaching role in transforming and developing people. Finally, authentic leaders develop effective workplaces that provide open access to information, resources, support, and equal opportunity for everyone to learn and develop in order to actively respond to the constant changes occurring in the external environment.
In fact, authentic leadership provides prescriptive and anecdotal applications that leaders and supervisors can grasp. It is straightforward and uses a variety of guidelines for both leaders and followers alike. A Harvard scholar by the name of Bill George explains authentic leaders as those managers who “recognize their shortcomings and work hard to overcome them. They lead with purpose, meaning, and values. They build enduring relationships with people. Others follow them because they know where they stand. They are consistent and self-disciplined. When their principles are tested, they refuse to compromise.” 2 However, authentic Leadership cannot evade criticism. For example, the foundations of authentic leadership are somewhat vague and lack attention to how an authentic leader can adapt to every situation and present different faces to different followers while remaining authentic. Also, authentic leadership can be challenged in terms of its theoretical foundations and approach to adapting people to the collective. For example, this leadership model has failed to consider the fact that each person is full of contradictions. In addition, authentic leadership can be critiqued for the lack of a theoretical rationale by which the essential role of social and historical factors can be justified. Similarly, a prominent Ivey Business School scholar by the name of Rita Gardiner posits that “authentic leadership is deeply problematic because it fails to take into account how social and historical circumstances affect a person’s ability to be a leader.” 3 For a leader to be completely authentic, telling the truth is not always easy. Therefore, is being an Authentic Leader a good thing? Yes. Does it work in every situation? No. Should a leader know about it and consider being as authentic as possible when determining his or her strengths and weaknesses? Yes.
About the Authors
Mostafa Sayyadi, CAHRI, AFAIM, CPMgr, works with senior business leaders to effectively develop innovation in companies, and helps companies – from start-ups to the Fortune 100 –succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders. He is a business book author and a long-time contributor to HR.com and Consulting Magazine and his work has been featured in these top-flight business publications.
Michael J. Provitera is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Barry University in Florida, an author of the book titled “Mastering Self-Motivation” published by BusinessExpertPress.
References
- Bennis, W. (2009). On Becoming a Leader, New York: Basic Books.
- George, B. (2003). Authentic leadership: rediscovering the secrets to creating lasting value. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
- Gardiner, RA 2011, A Critique of the Discourse of Authentic Leadership, International Journal of Business and Social Science, vol. 2, no. 15, pp. 99-104.