Authentic Leadership and Authenticity: An Existential Perspective

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is, firstly, to assess the similarities between the traits of authenticity and authentic leadership, as viewed by researchers using two different perspectives historically used to define authenticity: the existential perspective and the psychological perspective. Secondly, using a correlational design, the chapter goes through an exploration of the relationship between authenticity and authentic leadership in a French-Canadian population using a quantitative approach. This chapter thus provides a relevant exploration of the evolution of the concept of authentic leadership and various observations of its impact on followers, integrating the existential perspective to respond to continuing concerns regarding coherence between authentic leadership and the concept from which it is derived, namely authenticity.