Toor, Shamas-ur-Rehman; Ofori, George: Leadership for future construction industry – Agenda for authentic leadership; in: International Journal of Project Management, in press (2008).
Ever since Bill George popularized the meme „authentic leadership“ more and more articles pop up investigating this concept. In George’s words ‚authentic leadership‘ is simply just being yourself. Leadership is authenticity, not style! This includes building your own leadership style, adapting it to different situations, but also realising which weaknesses you have. Enough said – a summary can be found here.
Toor & Ofori look into the authentic leadership concept and root the ’new‘ way of leading on three antecedents – (1) image/style of the traditional project manager, (2) postitive mediation of leadership antecedents, and (3) positive environmental context. Thus allowing the authentic leader to develop, where leaders achieve awareness, can process unbiased, showthe distinct/authentic behaviour, and develop a relational orientation.
In Toor & Ofori’s article such a developmental process leads to an authentic leader who is characterised by
- Confidence
- Hopefulness
- Optimism
- Resilience
- Transparency
- Moral/Ethics
- Future orientation
- Associate building
Leadership Program…
A quote by John Gardner: Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers….