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Themes, Dialectics, and Paradoxes of Authentic and Sustainable Leadership

Sat, October 14, 14:45 to 15:45, SQUARE, Studio 316

Short Description

In today’s volatile world, individuals in leadership roles have to deal with complex internal challenges and wicked external threats. Within these high pressure environments authentic leadership facilitates meaning making, inspires ethical decisions, and enhances confidence. The presenters will propose a conceptual process frame to cultivate and sustain authentic leadership.

Detailed Abstract

In today’s turbulent times, organizations are constantly responding to challenging conditions such as shifting market demands, increasing competition, ethical meltdowns, problematic social and environmental impacts, retaining effective staff, and even the threat of terrorism (Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Individuals working on teams within the context of catastrophic events can strive to facilitate meaning making, surface hopes, enhance confidence, and create optimism. Such leaders are called authentic leaders, but how do organizations create conditions in these high pressure environments that facilitate the development of authentic leadership? Even more importantly, how can authentic leadership be sustained in a context of internal challenges and external threats?

Over the past decade authentic leadership has been the focus of increased attention and research inquiry (Leroy, Anseel, Gardner, & Sels, 2015; Liu, Cutcher, & Grant, 2015; Wang, Sui, Luthans, Wang & Wu, 2012). These studies have brought to light the growing interest in authentic leadership as well as the lack of agreement on precisely what authentic leadership truly is. The scholarship often points to increased self-awareness, consistency between values and actions, and a profound respect for others (Leroy, Anseel, Gardner, & Sels (2012) citing Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008).

These studies also highlight the lack of consensus on how authentic leadership can be developed. This is likely due to the daunting complexity of exercising authentic leadership. Approaching leadership authentically requires not only determining how to employ authentic behaviors (Dyjak-LeBlanc, Brewster, Grande, White, & Shullman, 2016), and balancing internal and external demands, but navigating unique paradoxes and dialectics. For instance, individuals in leadership roles often “have to choose between what is expected—and therefore effective—and what feels authentic” (Ibarra, 2015, p. 55). There are numerous other tensions unique to striving for authenticity such as staying true to one’s values while maintaining a commitment to openness. Increasing self-awareness is also fraught with contradictions. For instance, developing awareness of one’s intersecting identities is inseparable from the perceptions that other’s share of one’s identities (Jones, 2016). Furthermore, attempting to arrive at a true sense of self as part of an effort to find consistency between values and actions is difficult, if not impossible, as contexts and meanings related to social identities are constantly shifting (Jones, 2016).

What makes the practice of authentic leadership lasting? That is, how can authentic leadership be practiced sustainably? While the scholarship is limited, researchers tend to coalesce around the notion of “sustainable leadership” as opposed to “leadership for sustainability” (Lambert, 2012). Whereas “leadership for sustainability” emphasizes the maintenance and preservation of a particular organization even at a cost to the environment or community, “sustainable leadership focuses on balancing short-term concerns with long-term needs. Sustainable leadership fosters leadership in organizations on balancing the needs of people, planet, and profit for a sustainable future (Kiewiet & Vos, 2007). Within this frame the ultimate goal of an organization goes beyond creating value for shareholders, to making enduring and meaningful change that focuses on leadership that lasts (Hargreaves, 2007). According to Avery and Bergsteiner (2011), sustainable leadership is more than helping an organization survive. Instead if the organization focuses on being a contributing community member with a commitment to innovation, high quality, and humanistic management practices, then it will survive short-term turbulence. Nonetheless, even as organizations move toward more sustainable practices there are questions about how individuals sustain a practice of authentic leadership in these environments.

In this study, through an in-depth literature review, a conceptual process frame will be proposed that helps explain how authentic leadership is developed and sustained within organizational and global contexts. In the framework, we highlight how and what elements are influencing individuals in the process of developing authenticity sustainably such as critical reflection (Mezirow, 1990; Reynolds, 1998), navigating ethical dilemmas, leader vulnerability and risk taking (Drago-Severson, & Blum-DeStefano, 2014), as well as how to balance the potentially competing commitments to outcome achievement and organizational process.

Within the framework, the presenters will shed light on the ways in which authentic and sustainable leadership is cultivated and how it is sustained, based on the preliminary results from a current organizational study. The process frame will benefit leadership studies faculty and leadership development professionals in enhancing curriculum and program design at individual and organizational levels. Human resource professionals and senior managers will also find the process frame useful in considering how to create environments that sustain a validated set of authentic leadership practices, support increased team member self-awareness, and provide guidance in navigating authentic leadership paradoxes.

Participants