Authentic leadership – how to be the real thing

CATHERINE FOX
SEPTEMBER 18, 2015
THE AUSTRALIAN
Talk leadership in the corridors of power these days and you’ll often hear that an essential ingredient is authenticity. But there’s a catch if you want to be seen as the real deal by employees, customers and the market.
Far from letting it all hang out, authentic leadership is now regarded as something you do or perform. Experts agree it is a balancing act that can be tricky and sometimes backfires. It’s a bit more complicated than the version that suddenly grabbed attention a few years ago, when time-poor executives were looking for a new way to lead with credibility in a 24×7 globalised business world.
Of course, the quest for a packaged solution to the messy realities of running a business has a long pedigree. Leadership trends — ranging from charismatic, transformational, situational to servant and inclusive — have all had their moment in the sun and generated plenty of consulting income over the past couple of decades. And after an array of high-profile scandals, and the dire leadership exposed by the financial crisis, demand for a brand new leadership approach went through the roof.
But the theory is still a fair way from the practice of authentic leadership, which isn’t as much of a departure from past models as it may seem, says Dr Helena Liu, lecturer in Organisation Studies at Swinburne Business School who has a particular interest in the area. The concept was not only popular when she started her PhD in 2008, but also struck her as contradictory, with the implication leaders should somehow stay true to themselves in restrictive organisational norms. Even though the global financial crisis and corporate collapses tarnished the idea of a hero leader, the concept of authenticity still has much to do with the celebration of the self plus a fair bit of individualism and narcissism, says Liu.
“It’s seen by some leaders as meaning you have all the answers you need within you, and that’s tempting because it celebrates the self and is simplistic,” she says. “It means you don’t need to spend all those hours of work or worry about moral ambiguity, and you don’t have to rely on others.”
It’s also attractive as stress continues to build on CEOs or business leaders, she says.
“They are under so much pressure, and in public, for what they are doing and saying so this idea that great leadership comes from within is a belief that maybe they can have a respite from answering the incredible demands and just be themselves.”
The problem is this rather superficial version of authentic leadership has turned it into a modern version of heroic leadership — although that’s not how it was originally defined.
‘It’s a pity because if you go back to the original concept of authenticity, it’s not just about being true to oneself — which doesn’t have much meaning — but also about moral commitment,” says Liu. “Which makes it very difficult but worthwhile.”
The concept of authentic leadership isn’t a 21st century phenomenon. It was popularised by US management thinker Warren Bennis whose book On Becoming a Leader, originally published in 1989, sets out the idea that a leader must be
authentic by being the author of his or her own creation. He suggested that came from experience, self-knowledge, and personal ethics. Although there have been plenty of definitions since, it’s helpful to understand the historic roots of authentic leadership, says David Grant, senior deputy dean of UNSW Australia Business School, who co-authored recent research on the topic with Liu.
“You need to go back to the classic version of authenticity. I think inscribed across the temple of Delphi is ‘know thyself’ — so it’s to be comfortable with yourself as a leader and the consequences and the consistency of your behaviour,” he says.
While the business world remains enamoured of the concept, Liu says the academic appetite for the topic is beginning to wane. In the business sector, the financial crisis definitely pushed demand along because it was clearly a crisis not just in the markets but in leadership.
“Even though Australia did very well (during the financial crisis) I think the whole environment of uncertainty and ambiguity made us look for a saviour and authenticity was there to answer the cause,” he says.
In Australia we had also seen the HIH and OneTel implosions with stories of out-of-touch or ego-driven executives paying little attention to signals from their customers and investors. Or there was the more recent example of Orica boss Ian Smith, who left the job earlier this year with chairman Russell Caplan conceding Smith’s confrontational management style was an issue “from the beginning”.
Those signals could have been hubris and chest thumping, or severe cases of head-in-the-sand arrogance about business conditions. However, it has left many craving for something a bit more down to earth — and authentic. But as its popularity soared so has more critical analysis, with concerns that the framework can be inflexible and embedded in a particular Anglo-Saxon cultural model. Critics believe the theory implies leaders have a fixed set of values and behaviours that don’t change with circumstances and need to be on display at all times or lead to the risk of being seen as inauthentic.
Leaders struggle with authenticity because people evolve with experience and are rarely completely transparent, according to Herminia Ibarra, writing earlier this year in the Harvard Business Review “The authenticity paradox”. The three core elements of the approach can each pose a problem if they are too rigid, she suggests: being true to yourself; maintaining strict coherence between what you feel and say or do; and making values-based choices.
According to Ibarra, we have many selves depending on the roles we play; disclosing all as a leader can be counter-productive and lead to less not more credibility, and values that are appropriate in one job — such as attention to detail — may not be as effective in leadership.
Leaders struggle with authenticity today because our work changes more often; employees come from a range of cultures with different expectations and norms, and social media means identities are already on display so having to ‘‘carefully curate a persona that is out there for all to see” can clash with a desire for some privacy, writes Ibarra. And no-one is able to be totally transparent about what they think and feel because it is both unrealistic and risky,” she points out.
Another problem area for leaders keen to be seen as authentic are gender and racial stereotypes, according to the research by Liu, Grant and Leanne Cutcher (“Doing authenticity: the gendered construction of authentic leadership”). By examining media reporting during the financial crisis on both ANZ’s CEO Mike Smith and the then Westpac CEO Gail Kelly, the research found that being constructed as authentic depends on the leader performing in line with gender norms seen as appropriate for certain contexts.
Masculine norms of leadership emphasise decisiveness and assertiveness whereas women leaders are assessed on feminine norms such as empathy, and the ability to collaborate. The study found any overt diversion from these norms is pounced on and critically highlighted by the media. For example when Westpac raised interest rates before the other banks during the financial crisis, Kelly was described as “vain and greedy” and opportunistic. As the research shows, even an event like the financial crisis was described differently for each leader.
“When there’s coverage and reporting of something like the GFC you assume it would be neutral and you are reporting
on a reality. But analysing media coverage of these two leaders and going to the same point in time we found they had very different contexts,” Liu says. “For Mike Smith it’s a disaster that needed someone strong to rescue us, but for Gail Kelly it was about uncertainty and needed someone with a more gentle touch to manage.”
Both masculine and feminine stereotypes are restrictive and don’t necessarily deliver the best leadership outcomes. You’d think a complete leader should embody both male and female stereotypes, says Grant.
“There are times when you need to be empathetic and assertive,” he says. “The trick is to think about how these attributes are going to be conveyed to those around you and as you get more senior — it requires a great deal of thought and care. Senior leaders make this effort and they have a network of colleagues who peer-mentor each other.
“An authentic leader is someone who has a set of values that would be about the kind of values that society should function on. It is about integrity and that you match your behaviour in the face of a variety of circumstances and have consistency. Nobody could argue that Jack Welch (former chief executive of US conglomerate GE) was an empathetic person but you knew what you were getting.”
Grant says good examples of authentic leaders are former chief of army David Morrison and former Virgin Money head Brian Bissaker. They both embody a combination of attributes and have a quiet leadership style.
As well as gender there are also racial stereotypes for leadership, says Liu, who has also studied the leadership style of men from Australian Chinese backgrounds.
“What was interesting to emerge was they were able to perform gender in a different and not in a binary way. Broader society has a stereotypical view of Chinese men as not masculine and they embrace that and it’s not about conquest, they prefer a hybrid mix to challenge the way we associate leadership with hyper-masculinity.”
The Australian cultural norms for leadership are still “very blokey”, she says. There are archetypes around a particular Australian larrikin style of leading businessman that Sydney advertising man John Singleton can be seen to reflect. And while there’s nothing wrong with celebrating the true blue Aussie archetype on the surface, Liu says, the larrikin is usually male and white. The good news is that leaders themselves can play a role in changing some of the expectations we have of authentic leaders and broadening the range of acceptable styles and behaviours, particularly as everyone now has access to levers such as social media.
“The masculine leadership model is alive and well in Australia. Leaders could take on a bit more onus to challenge these stereotypes. You can’t deny there is enormous influence being a CEO and they can perform their gender in transformative and subversive ways, they can tell stories and be role models and talk about the experience of being a leader.”
When authenticity loses some of its allure, another variation on leadership will no doubt arise to replace or modify it, says Liu. Our love affair with charismatic leaders ended as the risks of narcissism became apparent, and transformative leadership lost its lustre as it was linked to company collapses.
There’s certainly nothing simple about leading and it’s difficult to define great leadership much less come up with a formula for success. Although the critics have honed in on some of the potential downsides of a rigid adherence to an authentic leadership model, the business world continues to find the concept intriguing. And there’s still lots to like in an approach that has evolved to put more emphasis on ethics, values and transparent communication in today’s connected and collaborative business environment.
Further reading
https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/pages/a-tale-of-two-bosses-why-strong-female-leaders-are-seen-as-inauthentic.aspx/
https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox