Authentic leadership is a doubled sided approach, both practical and theoretical, that can be defined in numerous ways. The three main ways authentic leadership is defined is interpersonal, intrapersonal, and developmental. The interpersonal definition states that leadership comes from the relationship between leaders and followers. Intrapersonal definition defines authentic leadership as “what’s going on inside the leader’s head” (Hamel, 2021). The last definition, developmental, states that leadership can be learned, however nature is still impactful in one’s ability to be an effective leader. This ever-improving theory has just recently been studied and it aims to explain why trustworthy leadership develops or not.
Authentic leadership is apparent all around the world, but it is absolutely necessary in sports. While reading this chapter the definition and approach that stood out to me where interpersonal and practical approach. Interpersonal authentic leadership is absolutely necessary in sports such as rugby, like when I played in high school. It was extremely important to be able to look up towards a leader, that you completely knew and trusted and know that they are going to put you in the best situation possible to achieve your goals. Under this definition followers must trust and be honest with their leader and the leader must provide the same transparency to them.
The practical theory of authentic leadership really stood out to me because I very much view sports teams such as rugby, as “wheel operations” where all the components are working in unison and if one component is off track the entire operation will fail. This is very similar to rugby because each position has specific roles and duties that need to be accomplished and if someone is slacking off it would end up hurting the whole team. I believe that accommodations can be made to make an organization work, however it is absolutely necessary for each team member/component to look out for and help each other. The theoretical approach is also apparent in rugby in the four qualities associated with authentic leadership such as awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. I feel as though these attributes are absolutely necessary in rugby and all other leadership positions.
Despite the major weakness surrounding authentic leadership such as not fully being researched, developed, and proved there are many strengths that are apparent in rugby. The major strengths in this leadership style that are apparent in rugby include finding a person to trust, the increase in effectiveness across the development of leadership, and the ability to identify practical explanations to overall increase efficiency. Having a leader that progresses themselves is inspirational, and their ability to identify and find solutions to problems improve over time. Similar to other leadership styles there are numerous factors that are not accounted for yet, however once proved this theory will be implemented in all sports across the world.
References
Hamel, R. (2021). Lesson 12: Authentic Leadership
I was intrigued by your post, because I grew up in sports and also wrote about authentic leadership in another blog post. My initial reaction was actually to disagree with your conclusion- Some of the more interpersonal and intrapersonal values didn’t seem vital in sports. Who cares is a leader was transparent if they were a good player and great leader?
And then I realized I would have. The dynamic of a team can be particular, and while you may not have to be friends with every team member you need to respect them. You have to be able to trust that they are being honest when they tell you things even when it is about something non-sport related. For a friend, is we had different morals our friendship probably wouldn’t last too long. For a teammate though, if we had different beliefs on things, as long as we were honest I don’t see where there would be an issue. This was a great post that changed my opinion, thank you!