Authentic Leadership

"To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate. When the best leader's work is done the people say: We did it ourselves!"
Quote by Lao Tsu

Our lives are unfolding in a rapidly changing world. The challenge of the 21st century will be to find ways to grow our global village in a sustainability way. The success of sustainable development will depend mainly on the leadership that is provided.

All leaders have their own particular set of values and worldviews partly based on cultural heritage. To ensure sustainable development an authentic behavior of people and their leaders and managers need to be further promoted. In this process of encouraging and cultivating authentic leadership it is essential to connect leaders around the world with each other through dialogue. These dialogues will improve the quality and authenticity of leaders and managers all over the world.

Authenticity is an inner attitude and an encounter attitude. It relates to the persons own inner being on one side and to the relationship of one person with others on the other side. Being authentic within oneself is a precondition to enter an authentic dialogue with others. From an ethical point of view, authenticity is the responsibility, which answers the call to respond to another person's needs but this is only possible if one knows his own true needs. That demands from a person the ability of letting go of judgments, methods and evaluations, which may have been useful in the past. One needs to develop the courage to open up towards what is happening inside and wants to emerge and to actively open up to the mystery of the other new event. When this happens to leaders, then organizations catapults from merely good to truly great.

Authentic persons challenge others to become authentic because they themselves are challenged by truly accepting themselves as they are with all their weaknesses and all their strength and through that self-acceptance they learn to accept the others as they truly are. When a person has developed that kind of authenticity the question of how to guide and lead the others arises and so the question of leadership naturally comes forward.

Source: (1) Authentic Leadership; A Challenge of the Future for the Water Management Sector by Dipl. Psych. Wolfgang Bischoff; (2) Authentic Leadership; A Challenge in Capacity Building for Water Management by Dipl. Psych. Wolfgang Bischoff and Ir. Atem Ramsundersingh.