"start being real" - Real World

The idea of the authentic theory has been around since the ancient Greeks but has recently been a subject of interest as scholars figure out what constitutes authentic theory. In its most basic form, the theory means to “be true to oneself.” It was initially defined by Luthans and Avolio “as a process that draws from both positive psychological capacities and a highly developed organizational context, which results in both greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors on the part of leaders and associates, fostering positive self-development.” A few years later, Michael Kernis proposed a four part model for this theory. These four components are self-awareness, unbiased processing, authentic behavior/acting, and authentic relational orientation. These minds, along with others have since gotten together to create a self-based model that focuses on the core self-awareness and the self-regulation components of authentic leadership.

In a world of increasing highly publicized corporate scandals, the idea that leaders should have sincere values and high levels of integrity is not a ridiculous thought. Companies associated with leaders that are found to be unethical are being held more accountable and, at the same time, these leaders lose a lot of trust from their followers. The difficult thing about this situation is that there are no instruments to measure the authenticity of a leader’s integrity. A good thing about this theory however is what when leaders do operate based off of their true values, they typically encourage their followers to do the same. This has been shown to have a positive impact on the follower’s performance.

In a nutshell, what I got from this theory is that the best leaders are good people. This theory to me is kind of like a fusion of the behavioral theories and relationship theories. It is similar to the behavior based theory because integrity, morals and values are things you can learn and develop, whether good ones or bad ones. Meanwhile it is similar to the relationship theories because it speaks a lot about relationships and how leaders can bring about a positive or negative outcome by operating on their instilled values...to be continued

link to article:

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=managementfacpub&sei-redir=1#search=%22what+is+authentic+leadership+theory%22