Authentic leadership refers to true leadership whereby leaders lead by example in nurturing healthy, ethical climates. Authentic leadership requires self-awareness, which enables managers to comprehend and take into account their individual and others’ feelings positively. Authentic leadership is boosted by emotional intelligence, which helps leaders to be aware of their emotions and to comprehend the causes and impacts of such emotions towards decision making. Therefore, emotional intelligence is projected to influence leaders in helping them manage their individual and subjects’ feelings more effectively (Hutchinson & Hurley, 2013). Thus, authentic leadership depends on excellent emotional intelligence.
Sometimes back, Lenox hospital in the United States was proven to be offering good services to the patients. Health professionals who led the other staff who included nurses, doctors, physicians and other personnel provided excellent services. The excellent service was behind the good leadership of their leaders; they ensured that once a patient was referred to that sanatorium, he/she could receive immediate attention of the healthcare providers. Proper treatment and medication followed the patients; this was all under authentic leadership (Ilies, Curşeu, Dimotakis, & Spitzmuller, 2013). People always received treatment and the hospital was praised by many. Afterward, the management was changed, whereby some executive staff was transferred to different hospitals in the US.
A change in leadership resulted in poor treatment. At any time when patients were referred to Lenox hospital, their treatment just depended on the wish of the healthcare providers. In this case, the new management was not committed to their work in that the physicians and nurses worked with little or no concern about the welfare of the patients. After a month it was reported that the death rate had increased by forty percent in that hospital. All this was caused by laxity of the healthcare leaders. In conclusion, the new management lacked emotional intelligence, which caused unauthentic leadership. Authentic leadership creates a smooth working condition, which has positive impacts while the lack of authentic leadership causes negative effects.
References
Hutchinson, M., & Hurley, J. (2013). Exploring leadership capability and emotional intelligence as moderators of workplace bullying. Journal of Nursing Management, 21(3), 553-562.
Ilies, R., Curşeu, P. L., Dimotakis, N., & Spitzmuller, M. (2013). Leaders’ emotional expressiveness and their behavioral and relational authenticity: Effects on followers. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 22(1), 4-14.