In Search for Leadership Authenticity at the Intersection of Tradition & Modernity

This paper conjectures that the Authentic Leadership literature has fallen into a sample trap– primarily drawing its evidence base from modern Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) contexts. In seeking to address this bias this paper addresses Authentic Leadership at the intersection of tradition and modernity and seeks to advance understandings of Authentic Leadership by investigating insider-outsider dynamics that arise where traditional cultural groups interface with more modern WEIRD groups. It also addresses the importance of out-group legitimacy – this is particularly important in relation to the intersection of tradition and modernity where significant power disparities are regularly present between modern and traditional groups. This paper combines the concepts of insider perceptions of legitimacy and outsider perceptions of legitimacy into a typology that provides a framework for understanding authentic leadership roles at the intersection of tradition and modernity. This paper contributes to the Authentic Leadership literature, first by challenging an underlying assumption within Authentic Leadership, namely that the role of the individualised self is foundational in achieving Authentic Leadership. Instead this paper looks to broaden this concept to fluid alignment which includes degrees, not only of internalised self-alignment, but also socio-political or normative congruence with the in-group context. Whist this may not be foundational in WEIRD highly individualised modern contexts in less or non-WEIRD contexts traditional alignment can be foundational for achieving legitimacy (perceived authenticity) with leaders frequently becoming paragons of traditional authenticity. Secondly this paper challenges the sole focus on internal leader follower (in-group) legitimacy, asserting that this should be considered in relation to an outsider external (out-group) legitimacy. This is particularly relevant at the intersection of tradition and modernity where power inequalities between traditional and modern groups has historically been and continue to be substantial.