Responding to several leadership scandals in the early 2000s, the concept of Authentic Leadership (AL) quickly rose to fame in both academia and practice. Part of this popularity was due to the heavy promotion of AL as an inherently positive leadership style which could lead to numerous beneficial individual and organizational outcomes. As a result, leaders have been widely encouraged to reveal their unrestricted authentic selves to maximize both employee and organizational benefits. However, AL’s fast popularization and positive grounding have been critiqued on the grounds that the propagated view of authenticity in leadership appears overly idealistic and may not correspond to real world experiences. Indeed, critics have called to tensions within AL: authenticity stemming from the internal self, and leadership originating from external influences. Thus, it might be challenging for leaders to both be authentic and fulfill their leadership role. To understand how AL is experienced in practice, the present study adopts a person-centric approach based on in-depth, lived accounts from 21 managers and 20 employees. Our analysis reveals new perspectives on tensions surrounding authenticity in leadership, including why and when leaders may need to prioritize demands of their leadership role over the expression of their authentic self. The underlying justifications relate to the interests of the leader’s subordinates, the interest of the leader’s organization, and the leader’s own interests. Contrasting with previous perspectives of AL favoring unrestricted authenticity, our findings highlight that there may be boundaries to, and optimal degrees of authenticity in leadership.
