Walton & Weybridge CIPD event - part 1

Last week I did a short evening workshop event in Surrey for one of the UK branches of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.

WoW! What a wonderful and friendly branch! In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's the friendliest CIPD branch that I've ever been to, and that's all down to the leadership and combined personalities of the committee. Of course, as so often happens within the field of leadership, their friendly and professional approach is mirrored by their 'followers'; those members who travelled from far and wide to join us.

Thank you everyone for making the evening so enjoyable and the debates so lively!

A couple of really useful and interesting things that emerged from the debate were that people want some definitions of what 'Authentic' Leadership IS and what 'Authentic' Leaders DO (verses Charismatic Leaders or Servant Leaders for example)so here is my definition of what an Authentic Leader actuall IS:

“Someone who is both psychologically self-aware and philosophically ethically sound”

Now, I know that sounds slightly academic,- well, as I'm doing PhD in Authentic Leadership I guess that would fit! What I will do, now that my life is back on a more even keel and I've resumed my studies, is pick out some of the most relevant parts of both the academic writing on AL and also from the pragmatic, practitioner led stuff and post it up here for you in a way that I hope will be useful.

In the next post I will write more about one of the other interesting debates that we had last week about the difference between 'authentic' leadership and 'pseudo-authentic' leadership.........

My best wishes as always,
Fiona x