Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders
Authenticity has become a central concept in leadership studies, but the question of how followers assess the authenticity of their political leaders has not been addressed. With few exceptions, the literature on authenticity and leadership focuses on normative arguments rather than empirical stu...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | en_US |
| Published: |
Center for Public Leadership
2010
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55928 |
| _version_ | 1826196563498631168 |
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| author | Pittinsky, Todd L. Tyson, Christopher Jordan |
| author_facet | Pittinsky, Todd L. Tyson, Christopher Jordan |
| author_sort | Pittinsky, Todd L. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Authenticity has become a central concept in leadership studies, but the question
of how followers assess the authenticity of their political leaders has not been
addressed. With few exceptions, the literature on authenticity and leadership
focuses on normative arguments rather than empirical study, and on the leader
rather than on his or her followers. Normative models of leadership advise leaders
to “be authentic.” Yet leadership is a social process. As leaders struggle to be
authentic, followers make decisions about the degree to which they believe their
leaders are authentic. In this study we develop the scholarship on authenticity and
leadership by introducing and applying what we call leader authenticity markers.
These are features and actions that others use to determine the degree to which
they believe a leader is authentic or inauthentic. We present findings from an
exploratory study of authenticity markers of African-American political leaders.
Political leadership of ethnic minority groups is a particularly important realm in
which to study leader authenticity and leader authenticity markers. We report and
discuss the seven authenticity markers identified in the research and five themes
about authenticity markers. The implications of these findings for leadership studies
and practice are discussed, as are directions for future research. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:29:34Z |
| format | Working Paper |
| id | mit-1721.1/55928 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:29:34Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publisher | Center for Public Leadership |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/559282019-04-13T00:24:10Z Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders Pittinsky, Todd L. Tyson, Christopher Jordan hks cpl kennedy school leadership african-american authenticity leader politics Authenticity has become a central concept in leadership studies, but the question of how followers assess the authenticity of their political leaders has not been addressed. With few exceptions, the literature on authenticity and leadership focuses on normative arguments rather than empirical study, and on the leader rather than on his or her followers. Normative models of leadership advise leaders to “be authentic.” Yet leadership is a social process. As leaders struggle to be authentic, followers make decisions about the degree to which they believe their leaders are authentic. In this study we develop the scholarship on authenticity and leadership by introducing and applying what we call leader authenticity markers. These are features and actions that others use to determine the degree to which they believe a leader is authentic or inauthentic. We present findings from an exploratory study of authenticity markers of African-American political leaders. Political leadership of ethnic minority groups is a particularly important realm in which to study leader authenticity and leader authenticity markers. We report and discuss the seven authenticity markers identified in the research and five themes about authenticity markers. The implications of these findings for leadership studies and practice are discussed, as are directions for future research. 2010-06-17T15:23:58Z 2010-06-17T15:23:58Z 2004-01-06 Working Paper http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55928 en_US Center for Public Leadership Working Paper Series;04-06 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ application/pdf Center for Public Leadership |
| spellingShingle | hks cpl kennedy school leadership african-american authenticity leader politics Pittinsky, Todd L. Tyson, Christopher Jordan Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders |
| title | Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders |
| title_full | Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders |
| title_fullStr | Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders |
| title_full_unstemmed | Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders |
| title_short | Leader Authenticity Markers: Findings From A Study of African-American Leaders |
| title_sort | leader authenticity markers findings from a study of african american leaders |
| topic | hks cpl kennedy school leadership african-american authenticity leader politics |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/55928 |
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