En Route to an Empirically-Based Understanding of Authentic Leadership

In a qualitative leadership study conducted in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the issues of authenticity and integrity were found to be of central importance in practitioners’ narrations concerning leadership. This paper uses qualitative data to illustrate what authentic leadership means and what challenges exist in achieving it. The paper contributes to the current efforts in defining and understanding authentic leadership by comparing practitioner impressions with theories of authentic leadership and behavioral integrity. Similarities between the empirically-based subjective theories and the existing theoretical concepts are discussed and implications for the development of authenticity are outlined.