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Credible and Authentic Leadership Development in Organizations

Received: 6 February 2022    Accepted: 2 March 2022    Published: 12 March 2022
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Abstract

Leadership practice that is founded on values is the new order in contemporary organizations that operate under complex and dynamic environments. The survival of such organizations requires the review of classical leadership theories and the adoption of newer approaches that have heightened the demand for effective leadership. Leaders’ misdeeds such as those witnessed in Enron and WorldCom, hypocrisy in the pulpit, infidelity in the family unit, politics of deceit, and so on have dented the leader’s image and the followers have lost the confidence they had in them. These developments justify the need to embrace authentic and credible leadership as an alternative leadership approach to rebuild followers’ trust and sustain operations of the organizations. The principles of authenticity and credibility are more critical than ever before in the restoration of confidence to followers where credibility has waned. It is on this basis that this qualitative study was undertaken to understand authentic and credible leadership development. The objective of the study was to identify how credibility and authenticity relate and the values and qualities that leaders perceive as important for defining credible and authentic leaders. The study adopted a qualitative research design. Three congregants from a Baptist church located in Nairobi city, Kenya were interviewed for their views about leadership, differences between authenticity and credibility, qualities of credible leaders, how credible leadership can be developed, outcomes of credible leadership, and the followers’ role incredible leadership development. The findings resonated with what is known in literature and in theory. The qualities that were found to define credible leaders included being forward-looking, visionary, compassionate, supportive, good listener, having integrity, being firm, being fair, and acting as role models. The fear instilled by leaders to the followers was found to be an impediment to the followers to effectively play their oversight role. The conclusion drawn was that credibility is a must-have tool for leaders to meaningfully engage their followers with a view to providing solutions to the problems faced at the workplace and addressing their needs. It smoothens the relationship and provides an enabling environment where leaders and followers can freely engage.

Published in Science Journal of Business and Management (Volume 10, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.sjbm.20221001.16
Page(s) 36-46
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Credible Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Credibility, Authenticity, Values, Qualities

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    Muthiani Ben Muli. (2022). Credible and Authentic Leadership Development in Organizations. Science Journal of Business and Management, 10(1), 36-46. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjbm.20221001.16

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    Muthiani Ben Muli. Credible and Authentic Leadership Development in Organizations. Sci. J. Bus. Manag. 2022, 10(1), 36-46. doi: 10.11648/j.sjbm.20221001.16

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  • @article{10.11648/j.sjbm.20221001.16,
      author = {Muthiani Ben Muli},
      title = {Credible and Authentic Leadership Development in Organizations},
      journal = {Science Journal of Business and Management},
      volume = {10},
      number = {1},
      pages = {36-46},
      doi = {10.11648/j.sjbm.20221001.16},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.sjbm.20221001.16},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.sjbm.20221001.16},
      abstract = {Leadership practice that is founded on values is the new order in contemporary organizations that operate under complex and dynamic environments. The survival of such organizations requires the review of classical leadership theories and the adoption of newer approaches that have heightened the demand for effective leadership. Leaders’ misdeeds such as those witnessed in Enron and WorldCom, hypocrisy in the pulpit, infidelity in the family unit, politics of deceit, and so on have dented the leader’s image and the followers have lost the confidence they had in them. These developments justify the need to embrace authentic and credible leadership as an alternative leadership approach to rebuild followers’ trust and sustain operations of the organizations. The principles of authenticity and credibility are more critical than ever before in the restoration of confidence to followers where credibility has waned. It is on this basis that this qualitative study was undertaken to understand authentic and credible leadership development. The objective of the study was to identify how credibility and authenticity relate and the values and qualities that leaders perceive as important for defining credible and authentic leaders. The study adopted a qualitative research design. Three congregants from a Baptist church located in Nairobi city, Kenya were interviewed for their views about leadership, differences between authenticity and credibility, qualities of credible leaders, how credible leadership can be developed, outcomes of credible leadership, and the followers’ role incredible leadership development. The findings resonated with what is known in literature and in theory. The qualities that were found to define credible leaders included being forward-looking, visionary, compassionate, supportive, good listener, having integrity, being firm, being fair, and acting as role models. The fear instilled by leaders to the followers was found to be an impediment to the followers to effectively play their oversight role. The conclusion drawn was that credibility is a must-have tool for leaders to meaningfully engage their followers with a view to providing solutions to the problems faced at the workplace and addressing their needs. It smoothens the relationship and provides an enabling environment where leaders and followers can freely engage.},
     year = {2022}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Department of Leadership, School of Leadership, Business and Technology, Pan Africa Christian University, Nairobi, Kenya

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