Perceived barriers to authentic leadership in the South African business environment

Abstract

The recent decades have seen continuing ethical failures of leadership in business, civil and government spheres causing significant economic loss as well as acute damage to trust and social capital between leaders and followers around the world. Authentic leadership theory was conceived to improve the trust and quality of the relationship between leader and followers, but good examples are rare in the South African business environment. This exploratory qualitative study was conducted through the use of semi-structured interviews with eleven experienced South African business leaders to ascertain their understanding of the theory and to explore the barriers to its successful implementation. An inductive analysis was utilised to identify and discuss emergent themes. The study found that the strongest perceived barriers to authentic leadership were the organisationÕs culture, the need to conform, cultural awareness and the history of the country. The strongest potential enabler to authentic leadership was to create an environment for authenticity, which cascades and reinforces itself throughout the organisation and produces multiple benefits. Other strong enablers that were identified were organisation driven leadership development and leadership self-development, with a future focus and an emphasis on multi-skilled development.