Authenticity is a good thing, right? It seems to be - there's no shortage of publications in academia or your local bookstore that espouses authenticity as a sought after strength. Hannum, McFeeters and Booysen discuss authenticity from two vantages. First, as a basic concept, authenticity is seen as "the consistency (or lack thereof) between what you value and how you act" (pg 166). Values here are defined as "concepts or beliefs about desirable end states or behaviors that transcend specific situations, guide selection or evaluation or behavior and events, and are ordered by relative importance" (pg 164). Second, authenticity can be viewed as having four components:
1. Self-awareness (strengths & weaknesses)
2. Unbiased processing of self-relevant information
3. Behavior consistent with one's true self
4. Relational authenticity (honesty in close relationships)
While this four component view of authenticity seems reasonable, I think most of us tend to think about authenticity along the lines of the first definition - the singular act of a life consistent with chosen values.
So What: But what do you value?
The Globe Study proves that universal leader characteristics exist. There's actually a fair amount of characteristics the world agrees upon - which is good news! Some of these characteristics double as values - honesty, positivity, justice, and trustworthiness. Many people across the world have agreed upon values. However, what happens to authenticity when one holds disagreeable values? Simply put, a person can value alcohol and violence and as long as their
lives reflect those values, they've passed the test of authenticity. As stated by Olivier in his article How Ethical is Leadership, "inhumaneness lies dormant inside all of us." This leaves a rather large gap in what authenticity could mean versus what we hope it would mean. What's inside us, things we could potentially value, aren't always good. Speaking of our inner self, Dr. Richard Dawkins, an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, says our "DNA just is, and we dance to its music" (Out of Eden). Ironically, there are plenty of individuals throughout history who we wished had never heard their internal tune.Now What: Baffled by Authenticity.
The potential for someone to remain authentic yet live by a set of values that can hurt others, physically or emotionally, baffles me. Unfortunately, such individuals have made authentic messes of people I love and have unintentionally or intentionally hurt me as well. Dinesh D'Souza says the 1960s led us to a "massive shift in the source of morality—away from the external order, toward the inner self." Philosopher Charles Taylor refers to this "morality of the inner self" as "the ethic of authenticity." D'Souza notes that human nature is flawed and sites Kant saying, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."
I agree that authenticity has a lot do with living up to the values we believe in. I'm baffled, however, when authenticity is attributed to values that mar society.
