Authentic Leadership Background Information Welcome to the discussion. The first week of the module you will write about your initial thoughts after reviewing the resources. The initial post should be at least 600 words. During the following week you will reply to at least two of your classmates. The replies should be at least 300 words. See the discussion rubric for more details on grading. Discussions should always be completed prior to "class." If you are in an online class or an on ground course this is prior to the lesson portion of the week. Are you ready to begin? 1. Watch the Ted Talk: Everyday leadership https://www.ted.com/talks/drew_dudley_everyday_leadership?utm_source=tedcomshare&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tedspread 2. Read the case study: Rhonda Delgado and the Compromised CEO http://store.darden.virginia.edu/Syllabus%20Copy/Rhonda-Delgado-and-the-Compromised-CEO_A_S.pdf 3. Initial Post

Discuss the importance of the authenticity of a leader. Why are morality, social responsibility and ethics necessary for an authentic and effective leader? Give examples to illustrate your thoughts. 4. Reply Posts Choose two (2) students that you agree or disagree with and reply to them. You can also reply to your professor’s posts. Posts must contain thought provoking and analytical observations ; contributions embedded with academic literature and a list of references are encouraged. *Posts supported by academic literature will enhance the discussions. Reply on this post: An operational definition is just a decision about operations to measure something. The decision might be faulty; it may work sometimes or it may not. Regardless of that, one must come to conclusion. The operational definition of happiness is when a person can identify one or more specific, observable events or conditions that any other leader can independently measure or test for them when relating to happiness. Furthermore, hiring positive people is not the only factor for success; a company needs to actively work to keep them happy and productive. Team members should help co-workers with coaching, mentoring and practical tips. The support that employees get from co-workers encourage happiness in the workplace. The team members are happy when they make customer happy; it generates loyalty to the company. Happiness and work are connected to one another; both are very important for the organization. Employee well-being is essential. Admiring people have positive effect in the workplace. It always leads to success of the company overall. It is suggested every company should check the previous periods profit amount. Increasing company’s employees’ happiness is no different. Leaders must be aware of current happiness levels to be sure in the future the levels are, in fact, increasing. Some companies have ways to find out, how is employees mood, when they are arrive at work. To do this, they ask three simple questions each day through an online form that includes a comment section. For the first two questions, employees can choose between options “super green.” “green,” “yellow” and “red.” before coming and and leaving the work, employees are asked: “What mood are you arrive in today?” or “What mood are you leaving in today”. It is also important to ask how much did that like the tasks they did today. The surveys are done within a minute and encourages employees to be more self-aware and frank. The results are send to central location where they analyze the outcome averages and outliers and compare them to previous periods. Some companies ask employees to fill out more extensive survey once a month through an online form that includes many topics such as the work-life balance, employee relations, ability to express opinions, opportunities for professional growth alignment of company goals and persona goals and many more. Team members meet once a month for a longer period to discuss the opportunities for growth and go over the surveys. The discussions are to find the ways to improve results for the future of the company and employees. Happy employees are more productive, more creative and less likely to leave. It does not cost a lot to create happy environment at the workplace. It is better to create satisfactory work environment for employees. it is not good idea to have only professional and formal interactions with the team. employees will feel the need to be professional at all time. Adding a little self-deprecating humor will hlelp the employees view one as human and approachable. When staff members feel happy, they are more motivated and produce better work. Additionally, making habit of asking employees what makes them enjoy their work and what does not. Doing best to solve the issue and listening and understanding and finding solution is must for leaders. It is important to create trust between leaders and employees, they should not have fear of losing their jobs for speaking honestly. Recognizing and acknowledging employees’ success, no matter how small or big it is. Staff acknowledgement can be small and simple as sharing one team member’s accomplishment during the meeting. Internal politics can ruin teams cohesiveness; it is better to eliminate negativity, gossip. Leader must be careful about negativity it may affect the overall team dynamic. Reply on this post: Kevin Kruse of Forbes breaks authentic leadership down into four areas. He states in his article that authentic leadership involves being self-aware and genuine, mission driven and focused on results, lead with their heart, and focus on the long-term (Kruse, n.d.). I would have to agree with that, because many leaders can just put on a show at work but act totally differently behind the scenes. In his article, Kruse stated that a CEO once reminded him that “Leadership is acting”, which I believe couldn’t be more than false (Kruse, n.d.). Being a leader is who and what you are as a person. Many people only want to lead so that they can get what they want out of life or out of a company, but this is not true leadership. A leader is responsible for every area that they oversee including ethically, socially, and morally. Many people can use leadership in selfish ways, but this lacks authenticity and always shows negative results in the end. In the article Giving Voice to Values, the writer discuses a CEO named Alan Farmer who had been with a company for many years and had worked his way up the ranks (Gentile, PhD, 2014). During the years prior to becoming the CEO of the company, Alan had shown to be a capable leader possessing both intelligence and gifting for strategic planning (Gentile, PhD, 2014). He was also known to have a great sense of humor and invested in both his family and relationships with others. (Gentile, PhD, 2014). The problem is that when he became the CEO of the company, his true colors came out. It was during this time that he started using employee labor for his own personal gain and also stole products from the company to use on his own house (Gentile, PhD, 2014). This doesn’t sound like a leader that was being honest from the beginning. To me, it seems like Mr. Farmer was just waiting his time to get what he really wanted and then he could be who he really was. This is why I believe that a leader is who a person is and not what a person can do. Leadership has to be expressed in other areas than just business. It has to be part of your ethics, morals and in the way that you treat others. In his TED talk, Drew Dudley expresses that leadership can be inside of every person (Dudley, 2010). That leadership is not just about one person with extraordinary characteristics who can change the world all by himself or herself, but it is about a person’s ability to invest themselves into someone else’s life. This is a picture of authentic leadership. The expression that leadership is already inside of a person and it just takes a circumstance or situation to draw it out. Dudley gives an example of when he was in college. He states that a girl was about to walk out on the university, because she didn’t believe in herself or that she would be able to succeed in college (Dudley, 2010). This woman lacked confidence. Dudley states that he had an interaction with this woman and inspired her to believe in herself just by making a simple, humorous comment (Dudley, 2010). It was this simple event that changed this woman’s mind and inspired her to give college a shot. Dudley says that these types of situations can be experienced by anyone at any time if we are willing to let the leader inside of us come out. The reality is that if someone wants to have impact in someone else’s life or in an organization then they have to be honest with themselves and have to be honest with who they really are.