Gender and Sexual Minorities’ Practice and Embodiment of Authentic Leadership: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The Problem. There are three barriers that might prevent gender and sexual minority (GSM) persons from putting the tenets of authentic leadership into practice. First, full authenticity with all social actors could carry risk in a world where heterosexuality and conformity to the gender binary remain the norm. Second, because of norms that surround the embodiment of leadership, GSM leaders who may wish to practice authenticity may not be able to be authentic in a way that is intelligible to others. Third, the very term authenticity is problematic: If authenticity is dependent on other's interpretations of behavior as authentic, then there may be no such thing as an authentic self. The Solution. This review of the literature outlines how human resource development (HRD) professionals may put authentic leadership principles into practice with GSM people-or to the ends of creating a more expansive understanding of what the authentic could be for us all. Interrogating the concept of authenticity and agitating for structural change can allow more individuals to realize their authentic selves. The Stakeholders. Through collective engagement in the project of troubling and reconstructing authentic leadership based on the scholarship related to GSM people's obstacles in practicing such, then we may be able to yet promote new forms of authenticity for all leaders.

Contesting “Authenticity” in Authentic Leadership through a Mad Studies Lens

“…"Coming out" of the closet can either liberate or curb the exercise of AL (Fine, 2017). The decision to step out of the "mental closet" is dependent on the leader's perception of followers' response to disclosures in sane-imbued spaces.…”

“…Years later he was invited to critique AL through a critical disability theory lens (Procknow et al, 2017). Here they took notice that AL does not see disability; more so, psychiatric illness since these "conditions" are not part of the status quo, can be perceived as inauthentic, and authentic leaders share their stories as integral to AL yet these stories are judged by stakeholders as to their authenticity (Fine, 2017). While AL theory has become meaningful to him because he lives by many of its precepts, according to this theory he would not make a good leader.…”

Putting the leader back into authentic leadership: Reconceptualising and rethinking leaders

“…A key critique in the literature of authenticity leadership surrounds its ability to be inclusive of different demographics. Fine (2017), for example, highlights two key issues that prevent gender and sexual minorities from embodying and practicing authentic leadership. The first, unadulterated authenticity when the notion of the self is fundamentally different from the prevailing societal norms.…”

The McElroy Brothers, New Media, and the Queering of White Nerd Masculinity

“…There is one glaring limitation to the analysis of the Brothers’ queered masculinity that bears mentioning: the media properties are analyzed assuming the Brothers largely choose to deploy authentic selves across their media platforms. Authenticity is performative in the sense that one need not necessarily be an “authentic self” so long as their presentation is interpreted as authentic by others (Fine, 2017a). Ascertaining authenticity is particularly complicated in media where self-presentation married with audience demands can obscure the “true” intent of the artist.…”