Authentic Leadership-Fad or Salvation? By Chris Dixon
The credibility of CEOs has had the biggest decline in the 12 year history of the Edelman Trust Barometer from 50% in 2011 to 38% in 2012. The credibility question: "Who is credible enough for you to believe?" was posed to a group known as the "informed public" aged 25-64 years of age, spanning 20 Countries. There is without doubt a mismatch in the "informed public's' perception of business: they expect (67%), as one of the drivers of success for a business, that treating employees well, would be important, but when asked how businesses were actually doing on this driver, only 27% felt businesses were doing this well. Perceived factors in this mismatch of expectations are: • Poor management (29%) • Unethical Business Practices (28%) • Shortcuts that lead to poor quality (21%) We are certainly going through tough times; there is no doubt about this. But, what can we do? Quite a lot, actually! The term Authentic Leadership may have some answers for us. Authentic Leadership is not a new way of thinking about leadership. In fact I would say that it is more of an amalgamation of the best, drawn from the leadership models of the past. In this way Authentic Leadership is not a fad but could be the salvation that businesses are looking for, if they wished to resolve some of the concerns highlighted above. 10 RuralLeaderMagazine.com | MAY/JUNE 2015
Authentic Leadership is not the 'guru' model of leadership where an organization's salvation comes solely from the top. Authentic Leadership can be practiced by leaders at all levels of an organization. And let's face it - the success of an organization is not the result of a single leader but the result of many leaders throughout the organization. What is Authentic Leadership? From the Greek word 'Authentikos' meaning "genuine, principal"conforming to reality and therefore worthy of trust, reliance or belief. Authenticity is: • Knowing who you are & what you represent • Consistency between values, words & actions around a known purpose • Facing business life 'as it is' to keep it real • The open & honest expression of what is important and matters • Courage & conviction to remain true to fundamental beliefs Authenticity is not: • Vague ideals to be the best or a 'holier than thou' sanctimonious attitude • Sentimentality that bares all to the world. The Value Authentic Leadership brings to answer this we can look to the old adage of: 'People join organizations, but leave managers'. Accenture conducted their own internal research and identified that 80% of employee engagement - the difference between people coming to work and doing an adequate job, and people coming to work and really giving of
