Developing authenticity in school-principals:
implications for training programmes
Ahmed Adeel Naseer
[email protected]
Abdul Aziz bin Nor
[email protected]
Takeyuki Ueyama
[email protected]
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education (SHBIE)
University Brunei Darussalam (UBD)
Brunei Darussalam
Abstract: “How can authentic leaders be developed?” and “Can there be a
shortcut in developing authentic leaders?” are major questions among scholars
and writers in the field. Even though there is no clearly formed construct of
authentic leadership and authenticity has not yet being specifically introduced
into education, scholars have started discussing it in relation to school settings.
Since schools are value based small communities within communities, schools are
learning institutions which require authentic leaders to operate. Based on a
qualitative research done in Brunei Darussalam, this paper discusses how
authentic school principals can be developed. Thirty-three respondents were
selected and interviewed in the study. Seven school principals were the main
targets, whereas the rest were personnel who work around the principals
(including teachers, colleagues and seniors). Episodic interview and semistructured interview were used to collect data from the principals and others,
respectively. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The study found
some of the key elements necessary for the development of authentic leadership. It
concludes that there can possibly be a shortcut for developing authenticity in
school-principals, especially through professional training programmes. This
paper also talks about some concepts that can be incorporated into professional
training programmes. Finally, some implications for training are discussed.
Keywords: Higher education, Educational leadership, Authenticity, Authentic
leadership.
Introduction
In order to cater for the socio-economic, political, professional and academic needs in the
twenty-first century schools, governments and other relevant authorities utilise lots of
resources on the development and training of qualified educational personnel. These training
programmes range from in-school professional development programmes to university based
intensive training courses. Many people complete such programmes and join the sector as
school-principals, supervisors or teachers. They are taught the most recent theories related to
the sector and trained to attend to the arising glocal needs of the schools.
However, it is common to see/hear on local and global news about the ethical violations by
the leaders (Neider & Schriesheim, 2011). This is not uncommon in education field. Some of
the school principals and other school staff are also accused of corruption, abusing of power,
deceiving ministry and public, and, most importantly, working for personal fame. These
issues are also observed from principals who are found to have reached certain recognitions of
leadership, like transformational leadership. This causes them not only to fall in their
performance, but also ruin the whole organization (Avolio B. J., 2010). Ethical violations of
leaders have raised concerns about leader genuineness. The possibility of the existence of
authentic, not-authentic (pseudo) and inauthentic leadership styles – eg: transformational
(Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans, & May, 2004; Avolio, 2011) – has shown that there
is something missing in renowned leadership styles (Avolio & Gardner, 2005).
As a result of this, authentic leadership (AL) theory emerges, and “responds to many of the
concerns about the lack of honesty and integrity” (Duignan & Bhindi, 1997, p. 208). Even
though some scholars see it as a root construct for all other forms of leadership (Avolio &
Gardner, 2005; Luthans, Norman, & Hughes, 2006), the construct of AL is yet ambiguous
(Avolio & Gardner, 2005; Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, & Dickens, 2011). For instance, scholars
raise some important questions about AL: “What constitutes authentic leadership? What
behavio[u]rs constitute acts of authentic leadership? How can authentic leadership and
followership be developed?” (Avolio et al., 2004, p. 806) Today many of these questions are
being dealt in a wide range of cultures and contexts (eg: Naseer, bin Nor, & Ueyama, 2013).
Literature
Authenticity is a term related to Greek philosophy, in which it means “To thine own self be
true” (Luthans & Avolio, 2003) and originated from the word authento, which means “to have
full power” (Gardner et al., 2011). The historical meaning of authenticity can be identified in
terms of philosophy – individual virtue and ethical choice – and psychology – individual
trait/state and identities (Novicevic, Harvey, Buckley, Brown, & Evans, 2006). Authenticity
encompasses four interrelated key components: “[self]awareness, unbiased processing,
[authentic] behavio[u]r, and relational orientation” (Kernis & Goldman, 2006, p. 344).
Even though the concept of authenticity dates back to couples of decades, leadership
authenticity has become a major focus among the scholars only since the past decade
(Gardner et al., 2011). Despite authenticity in leadership being still an emerging paradigm of
leadership (Duignan & Bhindi, 1997), many definitions of AL can be identified today.
The definitions of AL can be classified into intrapersonal (eg: Shamir & Eilam, 2005),
interpersonal (eg: Gardner, Avolio, May, & Walumbwa, 2005) and developmental (eg: Avolio
& Gardner, 2005) definitions (Northouse, 2013). In general, whatever wordings the scholars
choose to define AL, all the definitions and concepts of AL describe it as genuine-leadership,
which underlies all the other components and aspects of it. This does not mean that authentic
leaders are necessarily perfect people (without any weakness), but “genuine people who are
true to themselves and to what they believe in” (George & Sims, 2007, p. xxxi).
The breath of AL has widened to many aspects and components. The core theory AL
converges around four main components (Mazutis, 2013). They are self-awareness, relational
transparency, balanced processing, and internalised moral perspective (Avolio & Gardner,
2005; Gardner et al., 2005; Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008). Later,
this list has extended to number of positive behaviours and positive organizational context
(eg: Avolio & Gardner, 2005). Similarly, authentic school-principals are found to be
exercising many positive behaviours, of which three are baseline personal qualities: 1) faithful
to and faith in God, 2) respectfulness towards others and self, and 3) commitment towards
instruction (Naseer et al., 2013).
Unlike traditional views, the modern view of leadership is that leadership qualities can be
developed than merely born (Avolio B. J., 2010). This view is supported by the literature of
AL too. Authentic leader’s life is full of reasons for them to act genuinely. Everyone’s life is
full of stories, but only authentic leaders can frame their stories (George & Sims, 2007) to
change their lives (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). Table-1 summarises some significant models of
ALD.
Table 1: Summary of authentic leadership development (ALD) Models
Source
Luthans
(2003)
Summary
Avolio ALD model: Psychological capacities (which include confidence, hope
optimism and resiliency) and positive organizational context are
antecedents to self-awareness, which is also affected by both positive and
negative trigger events. Through self-awareness leader develops selfregulatory behaviours and ultimately gain the qualities of AL.
May, Chan, Hodges and Developing the moral component of AL: “The three components of
Avolio (2003)
authentic leadership development are moral capacity, [moral] courage, and
[moral] resiliency.” (p. 257)
Gardner et al., (2005)
A self-based model of authentic leader and follower development:
Personal history and trigger events are antecedents to ALD. Selfawareness and self-regulation are key factors of ALD. Through positive
modelling and authentic relationship authentic leader develops authentic
followers, and ultimately affecting one another’s development.
Shamir
and
Eilam The life-story approach to ALD: “The life-story approach to authentic
(2005)
leader development suggests that self-knowledge, self-concept clarity, and
the internalization of the leader’s role into self-concept are achieved
through the construction of life-stories.” (p. 409)
Sparrowe (2005)
Narrative for ALD: “… authenticity is not achieved by awareness of one’s
inner values or purpose, but instead in emergent from the narrative process
in which others play a constitutive role in self.” (p. 419)
George and Sims (2007) The journey to AL: Authentic leaders undergo three major phases of
development: 1) preparation for leadership, 2) leading, and 3) giving back
(to the community). ALD is a gradual process, in which leader become
aware of the true-self.
and
In summary, authentic leader development is found to be a gradual process, with many
crucibles, towards the peak of leadership (George & Sims, 2007). However, there is no strong
evidence that leaders should take their lifetime to earn authenticity. If leadership qualities can
be taught (Avolio B. J., 2010), there possibly can be a shortcut for authentic school-principal
development too.
The Study
This paper is based on one of the research questions of an ongoing philosophical doctorate
thesis, which is primarily aimed at understanding what constitutes authentic schoolprincipalship. The focus of this paper is on the development of authentic leaders: how can
authenticity be developed in school principals in the changing educational context?
This study was conducted in Brunei Darussalam, which is an Islamic constitutional sultanate
(locally referred to as Malay Islamic Monarchy). It is divided into four districts, namely Kuala
Belait, Tutong, Brunei-Muara and Temburong. Even though the country’s formal language is
Malay, English Language is widely spoken across the nation and in schools.
Research Design
Major Phases
Techniques /
Instruments
Theoretical
Purposeful
Sampling
Confirmation or
Disconfirmation
Episodic
Interview
Narrative
Research
____________
Narratives
Constructivism
Interpretivism
Data Collection
Semi-structured
Interview
Data Analysis
Thematic Coding
Figure 1: Methodological framework
The study was conducted using two groups of respondents. A theoretical sampling approach
was followed to select the first group (i.e. the target group) of 7 school-principals, who were
selected based on the suggestions collected in the light of key components of authenticity. All
the people who suggested the names of principals have come from educational background,
but from all districts of Brunei. Afterwards, the suggestions were ranked in the order of
repetition frequency and most repeated 7 principals in the list were selected by the researcher.
The second group of respondents was a confirmatory/disconfirmatory group, which depended
on the first group. This group included of 26 respondents who were working around the
respondents in the target group – i.e. at least 2 teachers/staff, 1 colleague, and 1 senior of
each.
Since AL is an emerging theory, this study needed precise data. Collection of personal stories
were enriched with the orientation of interpretivism and constructivism. The collection of data
was based on meaningful interactions using two research instruments: 1) episodic interview
and 2) semi-structured interview. After interviewing, narrations and other interviews were
transcribed and informed to the respondents for verification before data analysis. Thematic
coding was used for data analysis and ATLAS.ti-7 was used to assist this process. Figure-1
shows the study’s methodological framework.
Findings
Despite the poor childhood life all the respondents have gone through, all of them have got
the opportunity to study in the mainstream. However the degrees of concerns that different
individuals have had about their lives were different. While many of them have had average
childhood lives, some of them have lived difficult days and others have lived troubled days.
Some respondents’ childhoods were not special or memorable, whereas others have faced
several memorable and critical incidences, which caused them to change. These incidents are
found to be turning points and trigger events in their lives. Some of these respondents were
deeply concerned about their lives.
You know, my family was farming, fulltime farmers, planting paddies. Then my father
sometimes did part-time fishing, part-time construction work. He did many things.
On [year] my father and mother passed away. So I had to live with my sister.
Starting from that time my life totally changed. I did not have any parent then
onwards. I had to work hard for my life afterwards. And then from that time I
changed totally. I studied very hard for my future. All the thanks are to Allah. … That
[death of parents] made me strong. I was 8 years old that time. I still can remember.
I was very close to my father and mother. I am the second youngest in my family. …
Before my parents’ death I got number 16 in class. But after that I sometimes get
second place. Sometimes third.
All the respondents have started their career as trained teachers. Their commitment and
leadership in teaching are some of the reasons for being promoted to leadership posts. Initially
many of them were promoted as deputies and later as principals. During their career they have
gone through many challenges and disappointments. In such cases they reflect on their actions
and learn the respective lessons.
Among the respondents included principals who have undergone intensive leadership training
courses like MEd-LSI in UBD. Many of the respondents have participated in School
Leadership Programme (SLP), which is an in-service programme. Generally, all of them have
the desire to learn and know more. Thus, they gain information through self-learning methods
like books and online. Those respondents who were really enthusiastic in learning found ways
of upgrading their knowledge and skills by participating in university based leadership
training programmes. Their enthusiasm is evident from their continuous efforts in pursuing
higher qualifications. Moreover, it is evident that respondents who have undergone university
based training courses are more productive, effective and genuine in the management of the
schools, than those who have just participated in in-service programmes.
The data also show that all the respondents follow their own ways of self-reflection. Some of
them merely analyse their actions, whereas others use feedback from people around to reflect
on their actions. The respondents who were found to be more effective in managing their
schools than others, are better in self-reflection than others. Many of them repeatedly use
narrations as a way of self-reflection. According to them, their humbleness increases each
time they narrate their life-stories. During the process of leadership, they keep on narrating
their life-stories to their staff, colleagues and friends, which help them to reflect on their
actions over-and-over-again. Their self-reflection helps them to become more humble and
genuine.
In general, it is important to note that the respondents’ ages range from 30s to 50s. There is no
evidence in the data that respondents’ authenticity has developed after a particular age. Some
of the young respondents were found to be more genuine than some of the elderly
respondents. The study shows that the number of years in the field and number of
qualifications have no significant effect on their productivity and effectiveness. However,
candidates who have engaged in and learnt to self-reflect have shown a huge difference in
their commitment, engagement and production.
Discussion
The study supports many of the existing models of ALD (eg: Gardner et al., 2005; Luthans &
Avolio, 2003; May et al., 2003; Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Sparrowe, 2005). It supports that
principals can be trained (Avolio B. J., 2010) to achieve authenticity. Principals develop
authenticity based on various factors. Their personal history and organizational context play
significant roles in their development of authenticity (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). In their
everyday service they interact with various people and engage in several decision making
processes. This engagement in making ethical and moral decisions helps them to be more
informed about their actions (May et al, 2003).
This research also found that ALD follows a similar pattern to George and Sims’ (2007)
Journey to Authentic leadership. School principals start their career as teachers and build their
leadership capacities as teachers. During this process they attract followers towards their
initiative role. Similarly, in their journey ahead they face many challenges, which demotivates
them (George and Sims refer to this as crucibles). However, they are psychologically ready –
equipped with psychological capital (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007) – to face those
challenges and return back to normal. In addition, they also have inner desire of helping the
community. This feeling further increases as they reach their retirement, as one of the
respondents commented, “I want to give back what the government gave to me”. However, it
is evidenced by this study that there is no particular age boundaries for principals to reach
authenticity and go further in the continuum of authentic principalship development (APD).
As maturity is an essential quality of authentic principalship (AP) (Naseer et al., 2013), APD
depends on the personal/professional maturity and role of individuals.
This study understands that training programmes, which incorporate narrations and selfreflection process, opens unlimited opportunities for candidates/principals to move deep into
their personal and professional life and understand their biggest ethical/moral mistakes in life.
Especially, when candidates narrate and reflect on their life-stories outside their professional
context/practice and in the light of theoretical and multiple views, they start unlocking their
true self (Shamir & Eilam, 2005; Sparrowe, 2005) – as George and Sims (2007) say “Peeling
Back the Onion”. Self-reflections with others’ feedbacks further help principals to understand
multiple ways of processing a single task. In this regard two points are significant. Firstly,
university based fulltime leadership programmes are found to have a higher effect on APD
than short term in-service programmes. This could be because, like “time-outs” affecting
prisoners (Shamir & Eilam, 2005), fulltime training programmes also have “time-outs” effect
on the principals. Secondly, training programmes which incorporate precise reflection
techniques are more effective in helping the principals reflect on their self, than usual
academic programmes. Incorporation of techniques like Interactive Reflective Learning and
Teaching (IRL/T) (Didi, Sullivan, & Ueyama, 2013) in training programmes can boost
principals’ true-self acceptance.
Critical-incidents and trigger-events are synonyms. Everyone faces many incidents/events in
personal/professional life, but those do not always become critical-incidents/trigger-events.
Critical incidents trigger certain changes in their behaviour. Both negative and positive critical
incidents trigger APD (Luthans & Avolio, 2003) by the enhancement of self-awareness and
self-reflection (Hall, 2004). However, individuals are sometimes unable to trigger positive
changes in their behaviour without additional assistance from outside factors like
books/articles/presentations/audios and friends/lecturers/colleagues. Especially, when
principals engage in narrating (Sparrowe, 2005) their critical life stories (Shamir & Eilam,
2005), they enhance self-reflections and move forward in AP continuum.
Even though simulation of life events are ethically impossible (Avolio B. J., 2004), careful
listening and contributions of principals in carefully structured self-narrations of other
principals, especially, in special groups like training cohorts can be a proactive strategy that
can accelerate APD (Luthans & Avolio, 2003). As some candidates may not have many
critical incidents to reflect upon and others might not be able to recall necessary incidents,
narrating in cohorts helps all the candidates gain authenticity by engaging in critical analysis
of such narrations.
Conclusion
In sum, this study makes six conclusions regarding the development of authentic principals.
Firstly, developmental readiness (Avolio, 2004; Avolio & Hannah, 2008) is an essential
quality of APD. Thus, as part of developmental readiness of AP, baseline personal qualities of
authentic principal – namely, respecting others, faith-in and faithful-to God, and commitment
towards instruction (Naseer et al., 2013) – accelerates APD. Secondly, understanding of trueself through self-reflection is a requirement for APD journey ahead. Thirdly, incorporation of
IRL/T (Didi et al., 2013) in professional training programmes initiates and boosts accepting
true-self. Fourthly, engagement in planned trigger events as a proactive strategy (Luthans &
Avolio, 2003) can be an alternative to personal life-stories and a shortcut for better selfawareness and self-regulation. Fifthly, theoretical academic understanding of the principals
about leadership and core tasks help them to reflect on their actions more effectively. Sixthly,
integration of the preceding five findings in professional training programmes have a catalytic
effect on the training of authentic school-principals.
The findings of this study can be helpful for principalship (generally, leadership) training
programmes. If those programmes are developed in the light of the above mentioned six
conclusions, such programmes may act as a shortcut for APD. Essentially, training
programmes are required to incorporate ways of individualised self-reflection in the light of
critical-incidents and relevant theories. Moreover, this study also recalls Sparrowe’s (2005)
implications of narrative in leadership development as possibility of a shortcut for ALD.
However, programmes designers need to test 1) effective ways of incorporating these
findings, and 2) the effect of the incorporation on the candidates on a long term basis.
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Authors’ Bio-data:
Ahmed Adeel Naseer, M.Ed.Mngt.: Currently, he is a fulltime Ph.D. candidate at Sultan Hassanal
Bolkiah Institute of Education, University Brunei Darussalam. His professional interests include
educational leadership, instructional supervision and teaching/learning.
Abdul Aziz bin Nor, Ed.D.: Currently, he is a senior lecturer in the Leadership and School Improvement
Programme at the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, University Brunei Darussalam.
Specialising in educational leadership & management, his primary interests include leadership and
management training methodology, and professional learning.
Takeyuki Ueyama, Ph.D.: Currently, he is an associate professor in the Leadership and School
Improvement Programme at the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education, University Brunei
Darussalam. His primary research interests include leadership, program design and development, and
strategic planning for higher institutions and schools.