The definition continues on to say that there are four authentic leadership components: Self-awareness, Internalized moral perspective, meaning knows the right thing to do and is river by ethics and fairness, balanced processing, meaning they are fair minded and open to others, and they possess relational transparency, meaning they are honest and straightforward with followers. In addition there are also five major characteristics of an authentic leader. They: understand their purpose, have strong values, trusting relationships, self-discipline and act from the heart.
Based on the information given in the case, “A Leader Under Fire”, it is clear that Greg possessed many of these attributes of an authentic leader. He had a major fife event that triggered his leadership. This event made him self-aware and gave him a purpose. His purpose was to help those who had helped him, he knew what the right thing to do was and he had strong values which allowed him to do what he felt was right. 2 Moral reasoning is a thinking process with the objective of determining whether an idea is right or wrong. Transparency, means operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed.
Furthermore, in a social context, transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability. In my opinion I do believe that Greg exhibited these components as part of his leadership. While after the allegations of unethical behavior and wrong doings, Greg didn’t immediately defend himself, however, this was due to a serious medical situation. Had he not been so self-aware, he could have ended up causing harm to himself and/or the NP (CIA) that he had worked so hard to construct in order to help the people of Central Asia.
However, immediately after his medical issues were dealt with, Greg chose to speak with the media ND schedule a small number of public speaking engagements regardless of the advisement of his legal professionals for him not to do so. In doing this, Greg shows his true transparency and keeps those interested and those who may have doubted him in the loop. He shows true authentic leadership additionally by continuing to fight for his innocence while running still being involved the CIA. 3 Gregg response to the allegations against him was characteristic of an authentic leader because he was sure to be transparent.
He was open, ones and straightforward with himself and everyone else seeking answers. Additionally he showed internalized moral perspective by disregarding the advice of his legal advisors and chose to speak publicly about the situation, based on the fact that he was driven by his ethical beliefs and fairness, and felt that this was the right thing to do. 4 This investigation will definitely affect the authenticity of his leadership. This is due to the fact that people have the right to their own opinion and can decide whether or not they want to believe Greg, or hose who are accusing him of said unethical behavior.
The good thing for for Greg is that he knows who he is and what he has and has not done and he will continue to be the authentic leader he has been. Like Serge’s colleague Andrew Marcus said, “It’s hard to imagine anyone who’s done more for education in that part of the world (Central Asia,” Marcus has said. “It took a real human being to do that” With testimony like that there is no doubt Greg Morton couldn’t get past all the bad publicity and continue to be an effective authentic leader.
