BUS272 TB

400 Part 4 Sharing the Organizational Vision
to get very far.” Stark had heard previous leaders talk about the importance of culture without
following through. Williams came in and centred his election platform on cultural revitalization,
and his cultural ties and commitment were the deciding factors for many TFN members. How
important is authentic leadership?
What is authentic leadership? Is there an ethical dimension to leadership? What is
servant leadership? In this section, we briefly address these contemporary issues in
leadership.
7
Define authentic
leadership .
Authentic Leadership
Campbell Soup’s CEO Denise Morrison decided to lower sodium in the company’s
soup products simply because it was the right thing to do. 109 Kathleen Taylor, chair of
the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), believes that being a successful leader requires being
authentic: “authentic leaders build meaningful relationships that yield far better results
than command and control of the past.” 110
Authentic leaders know who they are, know what they believe in and value, and act
on those values and beliefs openly and candidly. Their followers consider them to be
ethical people. The primary quality produced by authentic leadership is trust. Authentic
leaders share information, encourage open communication, and stick to their ideals.
The result: People come to have faith in them.
There has been limited research on authentic leadership to date. However, recent
research indicates that authentic leadership, especially when shared among top management
team members, can create a positive energizing effect that heightened firm
performance. 111 Authentic leadership is a promising way to think about ethics and trust
in leadership because it focuses on the moral aspects of being a leader. Transformational
or charismatic leaders can have a vision and communicate it persuasively, but sometimes
the vision is wrong (as in the case of Hitler), or the leader is more concerned
with his own needs or pleasures, as in the case of former Toronto mayor, Rob Ford. 112
authentic leaders Leaders who
know who they are, know what they
believe in and value, and act on these
values and beliefs openly and candidly.
Their followers could consider
them to be ethical people.
Ton Koene/ZUMA Press/Newscom
Entrepreneur Grace Liu (third from the right, in the first row) is an authentic leader. Shown here with her
employees, Liu is co-founder and managing director of Asianera, a maker of hand-painted bone china. She
built her successful business of high-quality porcelain and innovative design based on her strong personal
core values of respecting the individual and operating with integrity.