Authentic Leadership: Need of the Hour?
I always keep telling my students, literally again and again, that though a lot of good quality research is going on in almost all the areas of Organizational Behaviour, probably a lot of work has been done in two areas more than any other areas: leadership and motivation. One area, that really interests me, has been the so-called, "Authentic Leadership". Luthans and Avolio (2003) defined 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" (Source: http://www.le.ac.uk/oerresources/psychology/organising/page_16.htm). Authentic leaders do not "pretend" anything, they say. They display their "real" self to the others and do not behave differently in public and private lives. They maintai