AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP IN NATO: AN ACTION RESEARCH STUDY

The study reveals a dissonance between the assessments of leadership experiences as reported by staff in the same organisation yet separated by only one managerial layer. It highlights the challenges and tensions felt as the leaders became aware of the dissonance and describes an organisational alignment initiative aimed at improving the coherence between the leadership and the organisational culture within a multinational military setting. The story reveals how leadership is often affected through previous experiences, experiences that were contextually unique, dated, fulfilling and effective at that time, yet potentially limiting and perhaps only partially effective in their current multinational leadership role. This reveals how insights and research were combined to create the catalyst for individual and organisational learning; it describes how personal development interventions were carefully crafted in order to specifically appeal to senior multinational leaders and managers. These leaders and managers were asked to confront and articulate their own values and beliefs about leadership and, in some cases, modify them in light of new learning; to become even more authentic leaders. Cognizant through academic research that leadership and organisational cultures can have a profound effect on performance (Denison and Mishra, 1995: Harris and Ogbonna, 2000), aware through staff feedback and an organisational change that will be described in detail I was deeply curious to try and discover “did the way in which leadership is practised change in some way as a consequence of the organisational culture awareness activities?