The gaslighting of authentic leadership revisited

Abstract

Authentic leadership theory (ALT) has become the target for considerable criticism of its conceptual grounding and the methods used for its empirical investigation. Mats Alvesson and Katja Einola (2019) have led the charge in advancing skepticism about ALT by warning of the pitfalls of excessive positivity in leadership research, using ALT as an illustrative example. In a subsequent exchange of letters, the cases against and for authentic leadership were advanced by Alvesson and Einola and Gardner and Karam, respectively (Gardner et al., 2021). As an extension to this debate, Einola and Alvesson (2021) advanced a provocative argument that ALT is not only misguided, but “perilous” to those who believe in it. We felt compelled to reply to this claim by documenting erroneous elements of their arguments that we contend constitute “academic gaslighting” in that they may cause leadership scholars and practitioners to inappropriately discount empirical evidence and their own lived experiences of authentic leadership (Gardner and McCauley, 2022). Alvesson and Einola (2022), in turn, replied with a lengthy defense of their position in which they assert that rather than engaging in gaslighting, their critique constitutes an effort to “enlighten” ALT. In this final entry in this academic exchange, we identify areas of agreement as well as continued disagreements in our exchange and take issue, yet again, with their argument that ALT is inherently dangerous for scholars and practitioners alike. We conclude by asking readers to be wary of these efforts to gaslight ALT and instead rely on the extant empirical evidence and their own lived experiences to draw their own conclusions about the merits of authentic leadership as a topic for academic inquiry and an approach for practicing leadership in the workplace.