Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Authentic leadership'

The purpose of this study was to illuminate leaders' lived experience of authentic leadership moments—those moments when leaders respond with increased authenticity, despite the challenges they face. The literature on authenticity, transformative learning, leadership, and Buddhism provided useful insights into this phenomenon.

Using a mindful inquiry method focusing on phenomenology, hermeneutics, and Buddhism (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998), 10 participants were interviewed about their experience of authentic leadership moments. Five phenomenological themes were identified: (a) abiding in ambiguity, (b) listening to the body, (c) opening to possibilities, (d) communicating with honesty and vulnerability, and (e) acting with integrity and courage. Descriptions of participants' inauthentic moments helped enhance the understanding of these themes and clarified the experience of authentic moments. Prior to the moment itself, leaders faced situational and personal challenges, acknowledged their fear and hesitation, made a commitment or decision to work with the challenge(s), and prepared for the moment in a variety of ways. The analysis also showed that after the moment, leaders experienced a positive impact on their self-esteem, their relationships, and the organizations they served.

The purpose of this dissertation was to provide a comprehensive understanding of the social construction of authenticity and how this is experienced throughout the stages of adult development, with the specific intent of augmenting women’s leadership development programs, and thus preventing further entrenchment of stereotypes. In a culture that is deeply conflicted by women’s authority, where men and women, along with the gendered structure of most organizations, hold unconscious biases and stereotypes, a developmental understanding for women’s leadership development is necessary. The research question was: How do women develop and experience authentic leading and leadership throughout the adult stages of development?

This qualitative study used Moustakas’s (1994) transcendental phenomenological approach. The sources of data were women participants who had previously completed a developmental StAGES assessment. There were 33 women who completed an initial survey and, utilizing stratified sampling, 10 women were selected for interviews, spread evenly across different developmental levels. The interviews were coded to determine what and how leading authentically is experienced, summarized, and analyzed, creating 4 distinct developmental syntheses: the socialized mind, the self-authoring mind, the self-transforming mind, and the self-transcending mind.

The results indicate women experience and understand authentic leading and leadership differently throughout the stages of development. They follow a path toward wholeness, a developmental process that can be described as the heroine’s journey, where their definitions of authenticity, authentic leaders and leadership, and their experience of leading authentically becomes more complex with ever widening perspectives and understanding, initially intellectual and then embodied. The socialized mind has a theoretical understanding with momentary experiences of the phenomenon, the embodied experience of authentic leading arose in the self-authoring mind, and the awareness of gender and leader biases emerged within the self-transforming mind, thus indicating the very subtle nature of these stereotypes, and the correlation between later developmental levels and greater awareness.

This study contributes to understanding authenticity as a developmental journey and the pervasiveness of gender and leader biases. This study can augment women’s authentic leadership development programs to facilitate authentic leading and vertical development. Deeper inquiry into understanding and preventing the entrenchment of these stereotypes is necessary.

This mixed method case study examines the relationship between the authentic leadership of the pastor of Warsaw Community Church and his effectiveness as a leader in achieving the collective goals of the church from the perspective of his leadership team and direct reports. It examines how his level of authenticity affects the followers' desire to be a part of that authentic relationship. By using a quantitative method study the research assessed the following: (a) the authenticity of the pastor through self-assessment and follower feedback; (b) the leadership effectiveness of the pastor through self-assessment and follower feedback. The qualitative interview portion of the study provides insight and focus into how the level of the pastor's authenticity impacts his leadership effectiveness and the level of authentic relationship between the pastor and his followers.

The 12 participants took a combined Authentic Leadership Questionnaire (ALQ) and Lewis Pastoral Leadership Inventory (LPLI) online survey. Following the online survey, the interviews with the Founding Pastor's followers, three direct reports, the co-senior pastor and one chosen by the co-senior pastor, added to a richer understanding of the context and relationships.

From the early 2000s onwards, authentic leadership has continued to garner growing interest from academia, the public sector, and across multiple industries. Perhaps the reason for the increased focus on authenticity is the unethical behavior demonstrated by a number of leaders from 2000 to 2010. While there is growing interest in demonstrating authenticity as a situational leadership style or even an inherent trait, there is limited research on what leadership strategies or practices are most effective for authentic leaders. This study was designed to apply a common definition, or set of criteria, to identify leaders that are authentic. Once this group of authentic leaders has been identified, research can be conducted to understand common characteristics, traits, styles, practices, and strategies. Conversely, the opportunity exists to understand what common challenges authentic leaders face to determine mitigation strategies. The findings of this study provided exemplary best practices for leaders in business and other fields. To help ground the study, a detailed literature review of leadership theory, and authentic leadership’s place within the study of leadership, was completed. The historical examination of leadership is important as it adds richness and context to how authenticity has risen to prominence within empirical and theoretical research.

This research showed that common leadership strategies and practices among authentic leaders include the ability to connect and engage through honest and transparent storytelling. Authentic leaders are vulnerable and transparent, and they enable and engage people and organizations through sharing a compelling vision. Their core leadership approach of honesty and transparency does not change, but they will flex how direct they are based on the situation and audience. In terms of challenges, authentic senior leaders have a high desire for their authentic approach to be reciprocated, and they can be too demanding. In order to overcome these challenges, they try to manage their stress and use physiological and mental means to manage energy. Authentic senior leaders measure success in terms of business results, talent development, and being recognized. The advice they have for future leader is to be one’s authentic self and to understand one’s personal mission and purpose.

Tragic, life-changing, and fatal incidents are a reality on large-scale, civil construction projects. Despite a decline following the enforcement of the 1971 Occupational Safety and Health Act, serious and fatal incidents on heavy construction projects remain higher than that of the active military and have not declined in any notable way in the past decade. Industrial-organizational literature suggested a lack of applied testing for the well-developed theory of authentic leadership (AL) to impact safety outcomes. This quasi-experiment combined the constructs of authentic leadership with safety climate perception as quantifiable measurement of potential safety outcomes in the workplace. The research question focused on whether AL would impact safety climate, thus, reducing injury and fatalities on the job. The researcher examined 1 of the 4 segments that comprised a $1 billion freeway improvement project. Perceptions of 108 field craft personnel were collected on a Likert-type instrument before and after their supervisors attended a brief AL workshop. Utilizing an ordinal scale, statistical significance was calculated pre- and postintervention by computing a Mann-Whitney U for independent samples. Significant improvement was found following the supervisor workshop. The reduction in incidents, when compared to the jobsite’s history and the other 3 jobsite segments associated with the highway improvement project, suggests a potential for this framework to support positive social change, that is, to reduce the human cost and suffering associated with industrial accidents.

Authentic leadership emphasizes the role of ethics and trust a leader displays and which can be a natural and inherent part of a leader’s behavior (Robbins & Judge, 2010). Leaders who are authentic know who they are, know what they believe in and value, and behave in a way that reinforces those values and beliefs openly and candidly (2010). Authenticity is inward-focused and reflects on the behaviors that a leader believes are virtuous and true, from which they project a self-perception that is consistent with their self-concept (Sosik & Cameron, 2010).

Studies within the spectrum of sports have identified that leadership among coaches is a contributor to individual and team performance (Kent & Chelladurai, 2001). In the field of amateur wrestling, coaches can be highly influential in improving their followers’ self-efficacy, which may lead to improved performance and completion of objectives (Rutkowska & Gierczuk, 2012). In leadership literature, however, a substantial gap exists regarding the importance of authentic leadership in sports.

This study was executed to identify which qualities, if any, were displayed by amateur wrestling coaches that are consistent with authentic leadership. The study revealed that four constructs – self-awareness, relational transparency, balanced processing, and internalized moral perspective – were each rated highly both by the coaches themselves and other raters. What was also revealed was that authentic leadership had a relationship with success as reported by assistant wrestling coaches. The study also showed that head wrestling coaches had similar views of their own authentic leadership as that reported by assistant coaches and wrestlers.

There was not enough evidence to support a relationship with success as reported by the head coaches and their wrestlers.

There is not a common, agreed upon definition of authentic leadership. There are varying opinions as to whether authenticity is a trait or a style; however, most scholars believe authenticity is a purpose and value based characteristic (Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, & Dickens, 2011) that is developed over time (George, 2003). Transparency is a core concept of authentic leadership, and situational awareness is a critical skill for leaders to determine the degree of transparency that they should demonstrate. There is limited theoretical and empirical research on how transparency and self-monitoring can be used in conjunction with situational leadership and situational awareness theory. This study measures the impact of a leader’s expression of transparency on follower’s confidence in his or her ability with consideration of a number of covariates. The findings of this study are intended to help advance authentic leadership theory with specific focus on situational awareness and transparency as core concepts of authenticity. Implications are discussed on the advancement of leadership theory, authentic leadership, and transparency as a core concept of authenticity.

Data collection used Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and yielded 1,006 global participants who met the inclusion criteria. In general, higher degrees of leadership transparency yield higher levels of follower confidence. Situation can impact how expressions of transparency impact follower confidence. Thus, situational awareness and situational leadership are critical competencies for leaders to use transparency effectively. Leader-Member Exchange does not, generally, moderate the relationship between a leader’s transparency and his or her follower’s confidence. There was statistical significance in the difference in responses between geographies, but there were not statistically significant differences in the results when considering gender, years of work experience, education, age, and race in the US.

Students' performance on standardized tests continues to dominate the discourse in the educational arena as it reflects student growth and teacher performance. The low performance index scores of 5^th grade students at 2 elementary charter schools in urban southwestern Ohio has been a major concern of the school district. Guided by social constructivism, the purpose of this research study was to identify curricular practices that influence student academic achievement. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 4 reading teachers and 2 administrators; curriculum maps, tests scores, and lesson plan documents were also reviewed. Interview, test score, and lesson plan documents were analyzed through an open-coding process and constant comparison of data to ensure trustworthiness. The findings revealed that 5 ^th grade reading teachers and principals used teacher-centered instructional practices that did not connect with students' backgrounds. Based on the findings, a capstone project was developed that provided a content-specific professional development training for reading teachers that would expose them to student-centered instructional practices related to students' backgrounds. The implications for positive social change include engaged classrooms with student-centered instructional practices that could increase student achievement in urban schools.

Today's nurse leaders face many challenges and concerns that require a new type of leadership — authentic leadership. Nurse leaders who are authentic are behaviorally altruistic, transparent, have personal integrity, possess attributes of caring, ethical moral values, shared and balanced decision making, effective communication, and integral relationships. The purpose of this research was to explore, develop and validate an instrument measuring perceived authentic leadership, by staff nurses, that is grounded in a nursing theoretical framework that supports clinical practice and knowledge development. In addition, to validation of the instrument, hypotheses investigated in this research examined the extent in which the Authentic Nurse Leadership Questionnaire, is supported by the Authentic Nurse Leadership conceptual framework, and its relationship between authentic nurse leaders' attributes, nurse engagement, and nurse work-life. The methodology included Polit and Beck's method of multi-item scale development. A cross-over design was employed to compare the Authentic Nurse Leadership Questionnaire, this new instrument, with Authentic Leadership Questionnaire was implemented in the pilot and full study phase. Sample included: an expert panel (n =19) which included clinical nurse leaders, faculty and researchers, pilot study (n = 20) registered staff nurses and full study (n = 309) registered staff nurses who provide 50% or more direct patient care. Study results indicated: the average Content Validity Indices (CVI) for the final 29-item scale, its subscales and individual questions, all surpassing the .9 bench mark. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from .89 to .99, and the Intra Class Coefficients (ICCs) for 3 week test-retest reliability from 0.87 to .94. Findings indicated the ANLQ was reliable and valid instrument to measure authentic nursing leadership. Overall the ANLQ demonstrated better nursing values as indicated by a stronger relationship with nursing areas of work-life and nurse engagement than what ALQ did. The ANLQ concepts were statistically supported by both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Nurse leaders who incorporate Authentic Nurse Leadership into their practice are uniquely positioned to influence nurse work-life environment and nurse engagement.

For over seventeen years, I have dedicated my life as both a teacher and an administrator to serving our children, especially our children of color and those of lower socio-economic status. I have lived and felt the successes of our children and teachers as well as the pain of public education. I have striven to be an authentic leader, keeping our children at the forefront of why we do what we must in order to provide ALL of them with equitable access to a quality education and opportunities. This has come at a heavy cost to me both professionally and personally.

During a “time out” in my career, this dissertation granted me an opportunity to reflect and analyze who I have been, who I am, and who I might become. More specifically, it allowed me to take a look at certain life stories of my past, and thus to better understand my professional experiences so that I may work towards becoming a more effective and authentic leader.

This study used an autobiographical framework with a qualitative design to analyze my life-stories and thus address the following questions: • What meanings am I taking away from my life stories? • How do my life-stories help my development as an authentic leader? • How has the notion of authentic leadership helped me understand what has happened to me professionally thus far? • What influence will this process have on who I might become? • Can this strategy help others develop into authentic leaders?

The study notes the importance of personal growth for professional growth and argues that being true to oneself does not necessarily lead to authentic leader development. Authentic leader development requires individual, systematic, and routine reflection on selected life-stories and an external catalyst to promote the discovery of deeper meaning in both the leader and his/her followers.

Contemporary organizational leadership scholars classify the ancient, persisting need to find one's true self as the study of authentic leadership. Authentic leadership scholarship is still very much in its infancy. There have been many calls by leading researchers to study it further in both qualitative and quantitative realms (Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008). The current study explores authentic leadership factors qualitatively, as described by leaders and constituents working in a retail sales-based environment. The qualitative methodology of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) is used in conceptualizing and implementing the research. In-depth interviews we conducted with individuals both in leadership and non-leadership roles. For the purposes of this study the terms "non-leadership role" are operationalized as non-supervisory positions. The data collected for the study center around participants' perceptions of authentic leadership relative to their personal experience within the retail sector. In accordance with grounded theory, these areas are subject to change as the interviews developed. Data was organized in two major themes, relational and instructional, with several sub themes. Data suggested that most behaviors associated with authenticity have to do with self-awareness and that most leaders exhibited a larger sense of awareness, or situational awareness. Further study in this area should be performed to include a more diverse population, detail suggestions are made.