The Complexity of Authentic Leadership : An interdisciplinary study with mixed methods about the relationship between gender and authentic leadership

Abstract: Authenticity is a philosophical and psychological concept with origin in Greek philosophy that means being true to oneself. The twenty-first-century corporations' increased complexity and multiple cooperate scandals have created a demand for application of the concept of authenticity into leadership – resulting in the concept of authentic leadership. Authentic leadership is something leaders should strive for since it shows to have a significant impact on work engagement, team effectiveness, financial performance, and work satisfaction, to name a few. Due to the many advantages of authentic leadership, multiple measurement tools have been created to identify and measure the authenticity in leaders. The idea of authentic leadership to be a measurable concept has received criticism and acknowledgment within the research field. Even though research states that authentic leadership is gendered, there is no consideration of gender in the existing measurement tools for authentic leadership. Men and women meet different conditions in life, careers, and as leaders, and due to the long history of male leaders, the norm of leadership builds on the male gender. The purpose of this study is three folded: Firstly, the study aims to understand how authenticity in leaders can be identified. Secondly, the circumstances that affect authentic leadership development will be explored. And lastly, the relationship between gender and authentic leadership development will be investigated. To fulfill the purpose, mixed methods have been applied. Six qualitative interviews chosen with theoretical and snowball sampling have been performed. Based on the learnings from the literature review and interviews, a quantitative questionnaire has been sent out to 327 persons. The study's findings show that identifying authenticity can be accomplished by different approaches: Questionnaire, in-depth interviews, and through a feeling. The circumstances that affect authentic leadership development are dependent on the formations of the factors and a person's level of self-awareness. Lastly, authentic leadership is challenging for both men and women since the male prototype of leaders can hinder both genders.