Leadership in a Constant Liminal Loop: How can i be Authentic when i don't know who i am?

Abstract

The search for leader authenticity implies that somewhere there is a true self. Yet the self, like anything else, is constantly changing, passing through a series of liminal phases. Authenticity, therefore, would capture the liminal condition within which all leaders operate. What this process yields, however, is a web of paradoxes, such as the need to stabilize while remaining open to a shifting reality and interpreting that reality at both the micro and the macro levels in a never‐ending loop known as the hermeneutic circle. Only a complex and fluid leader can cope with a complex and fluid reality. Fortunately, the literature presents a conceptual toolkit, including Boyd's OODA loop, paradoxical thinking, design thinking, and systems thinking–gathered in this article to assist the leader whose authentic self is always a work in progress.

From Me to We

“…By engaging in the circular process of looking at the line-by-line data, stepping back and taking in the data as a whole, and then going back to the details and back to the whole again repeatedly, I was able to see the data from different angles and at a number of levels. According to Donaldson and Harter (2019), one must complete the hermeneutic circle "to understand and have a contextual reference of the whole to understand the parts while simultaneously having an understanding and contextual reference to the parts to understand the whole" (p. 10). The circle is "concerned with the dynamic relationship between the part and the whole, at a series of levels.…”

A Bhagavad Gita‐inspired Linked Leadership Model

“…The linked leader integrates the self, others, nature, virtue, as part of a divine purpose as yoga. It is not required to be a believer of the Bhagavad-Gita to benefit from its important lessons of this flexible playbook that has crossed the ages without losing its vitality and appeal, and that is as useful today as it has been in the past to address the paradoxes of life and leadership (Berti et al, 2018;Donaldson & Harter, 2019). Whatever the motivation in engaging with this wisdom, whether approaching it out of curiosity, as a spiritual seeker, or as a faithful devotee, the Bhagavad Gita itself respectfully and nondogmatically offers a choice with Krishna's concluding words: "I have thus explained to you this most confidential knowledge.…”