Within the past year or so, the topic of authentic leadership keeps surfacing around the Hogan office, with our clients, and at a few conferences. The repeated references to and different explanations of this buzzword in the leadership development world caused me to pause for a minute. What exactly is authentic leadership, and how can you achieve it? Or, better yet, what can stand your way?

To answer these questions, I started with the authentic leadership guru, Bill George. Mr. George has penned two books on the topic: Authentic Leadership and its successor True North. In his blog post “Authentic Leadership Revisited” he defines authentic leadership as “being genuine, real, and true to who you are.” Another blog post  states that, “to become authentic, each of us has to develop our own leadership style, consistent with our personality and character.”

I think the concept of achieving authentic leadership boils down to strategic self-awareness. Knowing your strengths and challenges, being willing to point out the chinks in your armor, and demonstrating a certain element of humility can all lead to becoming a more authentic leader. Of course, this is more easily said than done. However, Hogan’s personality assessments, development-focused reports, and feedback process can certainly help start the strategic self-awareness conversation.

Additionally, the bigger question here remains. Are there certain personality characteristics that can stand in your way of being seen as authentic? The moving against cluster (Bold, Colorful, Mischievous, and Imaginative) on the Hogan Development Survey can affect your perceived ability to be authentic. It’s important to keep in mind that HDS behaviors often arise under stress, pressure, boredom, or complacency. These are not every day behaviors, but can still impact your perceived authenticity or leadership brand. For example, high scores on this cluster suggest that leaders with these derailing behaviors may not express humility (Colorful) and be unwilling to admit mistakes (Bold). The graph below highlights the impact these derailers can have on authentic leadership.



So, how do you derail? Given these implications for authentic leadership, it’s worth looking into. 

People look for four essential characteristics in leaders.

In a previous post, we discussed the importance of integrity. The second essential characteristic people look for in leaders is judgment.

The welfare of subordinates depends on the judgment of their superiors, and some people have better judgment than others.

The success or failure of organizations depends on decision-making. Napoleon destroyed France and Hitler destroyed Germany by deciding to invade Russia in the winter, after which their armies (their subordinates) were slaughtered.    

Most business failures are the result of bad decisions that are compounded by an unwillingness to evaluate decisions and change direction.

To learn more about the four essential characteristics of good leaders, check out our free e-book, Leadership: You're Doing It Wrong.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Leadership is the ability to build and maintain a team that can outperform the competition. Therefore a good leader must be someone others are willing to follow.

People look for four essential characteristics in leaders, the first of which is integrity.

People need to know that the person in charge won’t take advantage of his or her position—won’t lie, steal, play favorites, or betray subordinates. Unfortunately, many do.

Integrity is the most important characteristic of good leaders. In our survey of more than 1,000 individuals, 81% said trustworthiness was the most important personality characteristic of their best boss. Conversely, 50% described their worst boss as deceitful.

Trust in one’s superior is essential, and predicts the entire range of desirable organizational outcomes: productivity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Once subordinates lose trust in their leaders, the relationship can never be repaired, and they are likely to remain outside the circle of trust.

To read more about the essential characteristics of good leaders, check out our free e-book, The Hogan Leadership Model.

Steve Jobs is arguably one of the most successful businessmen in modern times. He started Apple and NeXT, took a majority ownership stake in Pixar for $10M and after ten blockbuster films sold the company to Disney for over $7B, and around the time of his death Apple had a market cap greater than the gross domestic product of Poland. Apple is one of the world’s most recognized brands and the company’s products have won numerous awards for their technical capabilities, functionality, ease of use, and aesthetics. Because of these results many view Steve Jobs as the personification of the successful business leader, yet Walter Isaacson’s biography paints a picture of a complex and highly flawed individual. 

As experts in executive assessment, reading Isaacson’s book prompted us to ask three questions about Steven Jobs and current hiring practices. First, would Jobs have been hired to be the CEO of a start up or a Fortune 500 company if he had to go through a formal assessment process?  Second, what would an assessment have revealed about Jobs’ watch outs or development needs? Third, what can we learn from Steve Jobs and his leadership style? This last question is important, as Job’s tremendous success as a businessman has overshadowed some of the critical lessons about leadership.

Read the full article by guest bloggers, Gordon Curphy and Rocky Kimball.

Leadership lessons from Thomas J. Watston, Sr.

What is a good leader? Michael Scott, the former main character in NBC’s hit sitcom The Office, has an intertesting take.

Unfortunately, Michael’s definition rings true. Leadership is usually defined in terms of a person’s status in an organization. If a person has a title, he or she must have the leadership skills. Right? Wrong.

The truth is, people typically advance in organizations by pleasing their bosses with displays of loyalty and technical knowledge. Performance appraisals reflect how much supervisors like their subordinates. Consequently, designated high performers are often skilled at office politics rather than leadership.

Human evolution suggests an alternative definition of leadership. During 2 million years of pre-history, humans lived in egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies, and there was constant warfare between them. Leadership probably evolved as a mechanism that allowed normally selfish individuals to pull together for a common purpose—to compete with neighboring groups to defend territory and resources.

Therefore, leadership should be defined as the ability to build and maintain a team that can outperform the competition. Leadership is a resource for the group, not a source of privilege for incumbents; leadership should be defined and evaluated in terms of the performance of the team, which depends on how the subordinates perceive the leader.

To learn more about what makes a good leader, check out our complimentary e-book, The Hogan Leadership Model.

John F. Kennedy on leadership:

President Eisenhower on leadership:

Ever heard the phrase, “employees leave their bosses, not their jobs”? Bad managers are easy to spot, but good managers are more difficult to identify. Because staff engagement is most strongly linked to the behavior of leaders, it is paramount that we recognize what makes a good manager good and a bad manager bad.

Download Good Managers and learn the tipping point that distinguishes a good leader from a bad leader.