Being true to yourself is good for you.
LGBTQ+ people in management roles who forge a leadership style aligning with their own identity and values are likely to feel more enthusiastic about their role, and derive greater career satisfaction.
This is according to a study – Songs of the self: the importance of authentic leadership and core self-evaluations for LGBT managers by Luke Fletcher, Shaun Pichler, and Lakshmi Chandrasekaran – that was published in the Journal of Managerial Psychology.
Particularly, the study stressed that the framework of ‘authentic leadership’ – including being self-aware and guided by ethical principles – has psychological benefits for LGBTQ+ leaders. These benefits were shown to be unlikely to occur for heterosexual and cisgender leaders.
Here, the researchers from the University of Bath, California State University, and an independent researcher based in Dubai, surveyed 198 LGBTQ+ managers and 220 non-LGBTQ+ managers from the UK across a range of sectors.
An initial survey assessed managers’ evaluations of their leadership behaviour and self-confidence and a second survey a month later assessed role engagement and career satisfaction.
The features of authentic leadership include:
- Self-awareness: being aware of your strengths, areas to develop and impact on others
- Transparency: openly sharing information and expressing your true self to others
- Balanced processing: trying to be objective and analytical when making decisions, and involving others
- Internal morals: being guided by, and aligning behaviour with a strong, internal ethical compass
The researchers found that managers who adopted authentic leadership behaviors over the traditional ‘transformational’ focus on change and performance showed more engagement with their role and greater career satisfaction.
According to Fletcher: “When LGBTQ+ people take on managerial and leadership positions they can feel uncomfortable and unsure about their leadership capabilities – they may be worried about being too visible, or too open about their LGBTQ+ identity, and they may feel they have to conform to traditional views around what constitutes a good leader.
The researchers stressed that “authentic leadership can help LGBTQ+ people feel true to themselves while navigating the pressures and tensions around leadership. The study also showed that for non-LGBT people the psychological impact is less apparent – leading authentically isn’t as relevant to their sense of engagement and satisfaction at work,” Fletcher said.
The psychological benefit was particularly strong for LGBTQ+ managers who lacked self-confidence and self-esteem.
Pichler added: “The research points to the need for ensuring that LGBTQ+ managers are aware of and trained in authentic leadership. Stigma and negative stereotypes can be a barrier to LGBTQ+ people developing their leadership careers. Encouraging people to develop their own approach to leadership that reflects their own authenticity and ethical values, yet also aligns with the organizational context, can be very effective in helping people, particularly those who lack self-confidence or self-esteem, to develop their leadership potential.”
