The Meaning and Implications of Authentic Leadership

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According to Lo (2008) citing George's definition in Harvard Business Review, authentic leaders are 'good in their skin,' so good they don't feel a need to impress or please others. According to Lo, they not only inspire those around them, they bring people together around a shared purpose and a common set of values and motivate them to create value for everyone involved. According to Lo, in the publication "Positive Organizational Scholarship," Luthans and Avolio (2003) define authentic leadership 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" (p. 243).

According to Lo (2008) the concept of authenticity originated back in the ancient Greeks as captured by their timeless admonition to 'be true to yourself.' In the field of positive psychology, authenticity is defined as 'owning one's personal experiences, be they thoughts, emotions, needs, preferences, or beliefs, processes captured by the injunction to know oneself and behaving in accordance with the true self (citing Harter, 2002). Thus the logic is simple: we cannot imitate other people's leadership; we can't be another Jack Welch or Bill Gates, by doing just what they did (however, we can learn from their experiences for sure), because what successful leaders have in common are not styles and images, but their substance and integrity. In turn, we must then learn to be our own kind of leaders (Lo, 2008).

According to the Center for ...