Cultivating Authentic Leaders: Toward Conceptual Coherence and Sustainable Practice

The purpose of this paper is twofold. One is to better understand the contested construct of authentic leadership and its cultivation and practice. The other is to offer a conceptual framework for practicing sustainable authentic leadership. Based on a review of authentic leadership literature with a focus on its sustainability, we introduce a conceptual framework through a lens of an ecological model to capture the dynamics of individual and systems perspectives. Practicing sustainable authentic leadership is not a simple act; rather authentic leaders need to embrace paradoxes to navigate today’s complex systems and to find new ways to create positive and valuable roles both in and outside of their organization. In addition to a new conceptual framework, this paper offers approaches for leaders and educators to develop and practice authentic leadership. It also provides opportunities for values-based leadership community members to further discuss and examine sustainable authentic leadership approaches with the proposed conceptual framework.