What is authentic leadership?
Authentic leadership combines self-awareness, balanced consideration of information, an internalised moral perspective, and relational transparency appropriate to the role and context.
Reflect on self-awareness, balanced processing, values-based action, and appropriate transparency rather than simply ‘being yourself.’
Answer as you are today
Choose the answer that best describes your recent behaviour at work. No email required.
What does authentic leadership mean?
Authentic leadership combines self-awareness, balanced consideration of information, an internalised moral perspective, and relational transparency appropriate to the role and context.
Why it matters at work
Authenticity is not unfiltered disclosure or rigid consistency with every impulse. Leadership requires understanding one’s impact, considering contrary evidence, acting from defensible values, and communicating honestly without making others manage the leader’s emotions.
What this assessment measures
Self-awareness
Understanding strengths, limits, motives, emotional patterns, and how others experience one’s behavior.
Balanced processing
Considering relevant evidence and opposing views before reaching an important conclusion.
Values & transparency
Acting consistently with defensible values and sharing relevant reasoning, uncertainty, and mistakes.
How to interpret your score
Your overall result is normalised to a 0–100 scale. Use it to choose a practice area, not to compare your worth with somebody else.
Build your authentic leadership foundation
Your answers identify situations where a small, visible practice could make this capability more dependable.
A developing authentic leadership pattern
You use this capability in some conditions. Focus on the dimension that becomes least reliable under pressure.
A strong authentic leadership pattern
Your answers suggest a reliable pattern. Keep testing it against harder work and evidence from people affected.
Designed for reflection, not diagnosis
The ten behaviour-based statements cover 3 practical dimensions. Responses run from “Never” to “Almost always”; negatively worded items are reverse-scored. Overall and dimension results are converted to a 0–100 scale. The assessment is educational and has not been psychometrically validated.
Read the full assessment methodology and editorial standards.
Research that informed this page
Fred O. Walumbwa, Bruce J. Avolio, William L. Gardner, Tara S. Wernsing, and Suzanne J. Peterson (2008), “Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure”, Journal of Management.