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With Dr. Neil Thompson
What’s the difference between traditional authentic leadership and an approach rooted in existentialist thought? Find out from Dr. Neil Thompson, then delve into how to use authentic leadership in practice.
Cost: Free to ILA Members; $9.95 for non-members.
- 15 October 2024, 3:00 PM EDT (UTC-4)
The concept of authentic leadership has proven influential over the years, but one of the key features of the approach can be seen to be flawed. The idea that we have a real or true self is one that existed long before authentic leadership came along, but the rejection of that idea goes back even further to the days of Ancient Greece. That rejection has continued through to modern psychology and social theory, existentialism in particular. The self is a complex, multi-dimensional fluid entity, so the idea it can be reduced to either a real or false self does not do justice to the complexities involved.
But selfhood is crucial to leadership in a number of ways as a basis of authentic leadership, but a more sophisticated understanding of selfhood is needed. Existentialist philosophy provides just such an understanding. In this webinar presentation award-winning author Dr. Neil Thompson provides a clear and accessible introduction to an existentialist approach to authentic leadership and shows how it can be of value in developing a more theoretically sound and practically useful understanding of people-centered leadership.
Neil brings to bear many years of experience of helping individuals and organizations fulfill their potential through learning, development and transformation.
By attending this webinar, participants will:
- Understand the difference between traditional authentic leadership and an approach rooted in existentialist thought.
- Appreciate the value of developing a more theoretically sound understanding of authenticity and its role in leadership.
- Learn how to use authentic leadership in practice.
Dr. Sarah Chace is an associate professor of leadership studies at Christopher Newport University. Since 2001, she has been studying and writing about leadership, beginning with her graduate work at the Harvard Kennedy School, which led to a project that formed the basis of her book Advancing the Development of Urban School Superintendents through Adaptive Leadership (Routledge, 2019). In the last few years, she has turned her attention to Critical Leadership Studies. Her most recent publications are: “The Skein of Language that Contains us: Narrative Holding Environments as Leadership,” co-authored with Adrianna DeSantis, which appears in the edited volume The Routledge Critical Companion to Leadership Studies (2024); and “ ‘ Everything Everywhere All at Once’: Paradigm Shifts, the Dynamics of Agency, and the January 6th Assault on the US Capitol,” co-authored with Suze Wilson.
