Warning for excessive positivity: Authentic leadership and other traps in leadership studies

Mats Alvesson, Katja Einola

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

239 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We study authentic leadership as a prominent but problematic example of positive leadership that we use as a more general “warning” against the current fashion of excessive positivity in leadership studies. Without trying to cover “everything”, we critically examine the principal tenets of mainstream authentic leadership theory and reveal a number of fundamental flaws: shaky philosophical and theoretical foundations, tautological reasoning, weak empirical studies, nonsensical measurement tools, unsupported knowledge claims and a generally simplistic and out of date view of corporate life. Even though our study focuses on authentic leadership, much of our criticism is also applicable to other popular positive leadership theories, such as transformational, servant, ethical and spiritual leadership.
Original languageEnglish
Peer-reviewed scientific journalThe Leadership Quarterly
Volume30
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)383-395
Number of pages13
ISSN1048-9843
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28.04.2019
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article - refereed
Event35th EGOS Colloquium: Sub-theme 37: The Intricacies of Meta-Organizations - University of Edinburgh Business School, Edinburgh , United Kingdom
Duration: 04.07.201906.07.2019

Keywords

  • 512 Business and Management

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