The Authentic Leadership in practice

QUANDO SE ESCREVE NOUTRA LÍNGUA QUE NÃO A MATERNA É PARA PENSAR NO PORQUÊ Before you believe and trust your leaders we must trust ourselves. Authenticity will be the light in times of complex collaboration. After the bankruptcy of several reference American and European companies plus the detected lack of honesty, especially from the leaders, it comes up, emerging, a new focus on leadership: Authentic Leadership (A.L.). Some practicioners, as Bill George, wrote that authenticity could be used as metaphor to “the true north” to discover the path to better organizational ways. Scholars, like Luthans and Avolio (2003) help the development of the construct and they define A.L. as a process founded on positive psychological attitudes and on organizational development. This will be the key of an higher auto-awareness and positive personal development both for leaders and followers. It arrives that transformational leaders, theorized by Bass (1985, 1990), are not obliged, not socially nor ethically, to be honest and integer human beings. We must consider four dimensions on the construct characterization. Walumbwa et al. (2008) proposes some pointers to achieve that taxonomy. First, the leader must know himself very well. Knowing own weak and the strength facets, the conscience of the impact of these behaviors to others are crucial. Secondly, leader must create a trustful climate, smartly founded, driving people to share thoughts and emotions. Next, the leader, to improve his own development, needs to know the other’s opinions or perspectives and consider all the information he gets about the business core. Finally, the leader must walk the talk showing others that all he do is labeled by values and principles in which he believe.