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Paradoxes of authentic leadership: Leader identity struggles

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Author

Summary, in English

Using in-depth interview material, this article explores the socially constructed and locally mediated nature of authentic leadership. The findings illustrate an irony of authentic leadership: while leaders claim that it is their true and natural selves that make them good leaders; simultaneously, they must restrain their claimed authenticity in order to be perceived as good leaders. This generates tensions that undermine the construction of a more stable and coherent leader identity. The study finds that in order to resolve these tensions, the managers develop metaphorical selves-Mother Teresa, messiah and coach-as a way of trying to accommodate conflicting identity claims while remaining true to the idea of themselves as authentic leaders exercising good leadership. These findings contribute to a constructed, situational and contested notion of leadership by showing how authenticity is an existential project of 'essentialising' fragmented and conflicting selves.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

437-455

Publication/Series

Leadership

Volume

10

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Authentic leadership
  • metaphors
  • discourse
  • identity
  • social
  • construction

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1742-7169