To be or not to be your authentic self as a leader? How leaders experience authenticity in their daily organizational lives.

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to explore how leaders experience authenticity in their everyday organizational lives, and to shed light upon what factors drive and limit the leaders' perceived need and ability to be authentic. Since the turn of the millenium, the authentic leadership theory has developed into one of the most influential leadership theories among scholars and practitioners alike. However, there is ambiguity as to what authentic leadership actually is, and the effectiveness and desirability of the construct has been questioned. Today, debate rages between two opinionatedly separated camps: the authentic leadership advocates and its critics. But research that seeks to explore the middle ground, where the perspectives are not mutually exclusive, is conspicuous by its absence. The space in between the two perspectives is the identified research gap of this thesis. To address this gap, we conducted a qualitative study, interviewing leaders about their own experiences of authenticity. We find that the leaders can behave both authentically and inauthentically in seemingly uncontroversial ways. In fact, contemplating whether they are authentic or not seems to play a marginal role in their everyday organizational lives. Additionally, we find factors along three dimensions that seem to influence the leaders' perceived need and ability to be authentic. The dimensions are the intrapersonal, organizational, and interpersonal dimension. This study provides several empirical and theoretical contributions that hopefully will elucidate the unexplored middle ground.