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Portrait of Mats Alvesson. Photo.

Mats Alvesson

Professor

Portrait of Mats Alvesson. Photo.

The perils of authentic leadership theory

Author

  • Katja Einola
  • Mats Alvesson

Summary, in English

In this commentary, we discuss perils of authentic leadership theory (ALT) in a modest effort to help weed out one theory that has gone amiss to pave the way for new ideas. We make an argument for why ALT is not only wrong in a harmless manner, but it may be outright perilous to leadership scholars, scholarship and those who believe in it. It may undermine academic work, delegitimize university institutions, make false promises to organizations, and cause identity trouble through encouraging managers and others overeager to live up to the proposed formula. We argue that leadership and authenticity should be kept separate as interests and themes of study.

Department/s

  • Organizational Studies

Publishing year

2021-08-01

Language

English

Pages

483-490

Publication/Series

Leadership

Volume

17

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Authenticity
  • critique
  • identity
  • leadership
  • research

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1742-7150