Only human: Exploring the nature of weakness in authentic leadership

Feel Free, Be Yourself

“…In line with recent recognition of the positive outcomes of leaders' openness regarding their limitations (Diddams & Chang, 2012;Owens & Hekman, 2012), we hypothesized that leaders' emotions that deviate from the prototypical image and may seem as weaknesses-such as shame or irritabilitywill mitigate the effect of internal pressures on impression management by demonstrating that deviance from impression management norms is acceptable. In the second study, we explore the generalization of the effect of authentic leadership beyond the leader-follower relationship by examining diary data collected in the service context.…”

“…Accordingly, in the first study, we explore the notion of the indirect impact of authentic leadership generated by deviance from the prototypical positive leadership image. Diddams and Chang (2012) maintain that while awareness and expressions of weakness are inherent in the conceptualization of authenticity, research has largely overlooked the important role played by human flaws. Owens and Hekman (2012), studying humble leadership, found that leaders' "unique strength involves having the courage to show their humanness to followers" (p. 794), including expression of limitations that, in turn, free followers from the burden of concealing their own limitations.…”

Conceptualization and Measurement of Virtuous Leadership: Doing Well by Doing Good

“…For example, spiritual leadership may lead to the abuse of power (Johnson, 2007) and follower manipulation (Reave, 2005), while servant leaders may inappropriately provide followers whatever they need to achieve goals (Winston and Patterson, 2006). Finally, authentic leadership may not encompass moral resources (Pless and Maak, 2011) and leave leaders unaware of their flaws (Diddams and Chang, 2012), while the potential dark sides of charismatic and transformational leadership are well known (cf. Conger and Kanungo, 1998).…”

What Does it Take to Break the Silence in Teams: Authentic Leadership and/or Proactive Followership?

“…balanced processing), authentic leaders can send a strong signal to employees that they value open communication. Balanced processing also implies that leaders may encourage (positive and negative) feedback from subordinates as such feedback allows the development of a more accurate understanding of situations, tasks, and relationships (see Diddams & Chang, ). Thus, to the extent that leaders question their positions and update their own interpretations of workplace events (i.e.…”