Gender and Sexual Minorities’ Practice and Embodiment of Authentic Leadership: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

The Problem There are three barriers that might prevent gender and sexual minority (GSM) persons from putting the tenets of authentic leadership into practice. First, full authenticity with all social actors could carry risk in a world where heterosexuality and conformity to the gender binary remain the norm. Second, because of norms that surround the embodiment of leadership, GSM leaders who may wish to practice authenticity may not be able to be authentic in a way that is intelligible to others. Third, the very term authenticity is problematic: If authenticity is dependent on other’s interpretations of behavior as authentic, then there may be no such thing as an authentic self. The Solution This review of the literature outlines how human resource development (HRD) professionals may put authentic leadership principles into practice with GSM people—or to the ends of creating a more expansive understanding of what the authentic could be for us all. Interrogating the concept of authenticity and agitating for structural change can allow more individuals to realize their authentic selves. The Stakeholders Through collective engagement in the project of troubling and reconstructing authentic leadership based on the scholarship related to GSM people’s obstacles in practicing such, then we may be able to yet promote new forms of authenticity for all leaders.