I voted for Barack Obama, but without a great deal of enthusiasm. I appreciated the symbolic importance of his candidacy, and I ultimately agreed that his message of change was appropriate to the historical moment, but the the fact that so many people seemed to view him as the Second Coming made me want to keep my distance. Hero-worship automatically makes me look for flaws in the hero and question the judgment of the worshipers.
Even so, I was moved by Obama's inauguration, and it led me to reflect on why so many people find him such a compelling figure. Even if we set aside Obama's purely symbolic impact (as the successor to a deeply unpopular incumbent, as the first African-American president, etc.) and even if we account for the partisan passions of his most vociferous supporters, it's clear that Obama possesses several key qualities that mark him as a leader.
The quality of Obama's that stands out to me most vividly is authenticity. It's always dangerous to describe a politician as "authentic"--they're in the business of telling us what we want to hear and presenting us with a believable and consistent version of themselves. But even Obama's most cynical critic has to admit that the man is effective at conveying a sense of authenticity which contributes substantially to his impact. I'm sure Obama works hard at this--it's a prerequisite of his profession--but that effort doesn't seem to undermine his believability or distort him into a hollow shell. Time will tell, of course, if that is true or not. (This aspect of Obama stands in marked contrast to George W. Bush, who somehow managed to convey a sense of inauthenticity even when, in my opinion, he was being quite true to himself.)
In Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones assert that authenticity is such an important characteristic of effective leadership today because traditional sources of meaning such as hierarchies no longer serve this function, and we look to leaders to fill that void. Goffee and Jones also offer a three-part definition of authenticity in the context of leadership:
First, authentic leaders display a consistency between words and deeds... But an ability to do what you say is not enough on its own.
The second element of authentic leadership is the capacity to display coherence in role performances. In other words, despite the unavoidable need to play different roles at different times for different audiences, authentic leaders communicate a consistent underlying thread. They display a "real self" that holds these separate performances together.
Closely linked to this is the third and final element. Authentic leadership involves a kind of comfort with self, which is perhaps the hardest aspect of all to attain. This is the internal source from which consistency of role performance is drawn. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines that which is authentic as having "undisputed origins." And in a leadership context, this is what followers are looking for: a set of performances that have a common origin. [p 16, Emphasis original]
What I find helpful about Goffee and Jones's definition of authenticity in action is that it provides multiple perspectives from which to consider someone before reaching a conclusion about their authenticity. Obama's already drawn flak from some quarters because of a perceived gap between his campaign rhetoric on the economic crisis or the war in Iraq and the direction he appears to be taking in office. I personally don't find this troubling because I'm encouraged by the more moderate tone he's adopted following the campaign, but I can appreciate why someone with a different viewpoint might feel otherwise and might even begin to question his authenticity as a result.
However, judging authenticity solely as a perceived consistency between words and deeds at some point becomes a matter of relative values. What I see as a reasonable compromise someone else may see as a disgraceful sellout. But if we set aside specific policy issues and go to the next levels in Goffee and Jones's framework, the questions to ask about Obama are: Does he display coherence in role performances and communicate a consistent underlying thread? And Does he seem comfortable with himself? And my answer is a resounding "yes." I'm eager to see how Obama makes use of this powerful dimension of his leadership and to see if his next steps enhance or detract from my perception of him as an authentic leader.
Photo by Lindsey B. Yay Flickr and Creative Commons.
