Authentic Leadership:What's in the Construct?

In a qualitative leadership study conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland thequest to be oneself i.e., to be authentic was found to be central for leadership. We will presentthe results in detail and highlight the difficulties leaders experience when trying to beauthentic in their daily interaction. By providing a contextually rich description of authenticleadership from practitioners’ point of views, our study contributes to the current endeavor tounderstand and define authentic leadership. We compare our results with popular theorizingand outline implications for the future study of authentic leadership.