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On Being Authentic
Abstract
'To thine own self be true.' From Polonius's words in Hamlet right up to Oprah, we are constantly urged to look within. Why is being authentic the ultimate aim in life for so many people, and why does it mean looking inside rather than out? Is it about finding the 'real' me, or something greater than me, even God? And should we welcome what we find?Thought-provoking and with an astonishing range of references, On Being Authentic is a gripping journey into the self that begins with Socrates and Augustine. Charles Guignon asks why being authentic ceased to mean being part of some bigger, cosmic picture and with Rousseau, Wordsworth and the Romantic movement, took the strong inward turn alive in today's self-help culture. He also plumbs the darker depths of authenticity, with the help of Freud, Joseph Conrad and Alice Miller and reflects on the future of being authentic in a postmodern, global age. He argues ultimately that if we are to rescue the ideal of being authentic, we have to see ourselves as fundamentally social creatures, embedded in relationships and communities, and that being authentic is not about what is owed to me but how I depend on others.
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“Authentic leaders, thus, make moral judgments freely and independently, without concern for potentially opposing normative or external social pressures (Guignon, 2004;Taylor, 1991).”
From Taking Stock of Moral Approaches to Leadership: An Integrative Review of Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership (2019) · cites this paper as Guignon, 2004
In the citing paper
“Authentic leaders' morality is proposed to be independent of external expectations, such that the authentic leader would make decisions based on their own moral compass, rather than on other people's opinions of ethics (Guignon, 2004).”
From Taking Stock of Moral Approaches to Leadership: An Integrative Review of Ethical, Authentic, and Servant Leadership (2019) · cites this paper as Guignon, 2004
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Lemoine, G. J., Hartnell, C. A., & Leroy, H. (2019) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2016.0121 · Cited by 614
Cable, D. M., Gino, F., & Staats, B. R. (2013) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.1177/0001839213477098 · Cited by 437
Positive Psychology, Ethnocentrism, and the Disguised Ideology of Individualism
Christopher, J. C., & Hickinbottom, S. (2008) · Theory & Psychology · doi:10.1177/0959354308093396 · Cited by 373
Imagine there are no leaders: Reframing leadership as collaborative agency
Raelin, J. A. (2014) · Leadership · doi:10.1177/1742715014558076 · Cited by 374
Lehman, D. W., O’Connor, K., Kovács, B., & Newman, G. E. (2019) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2017.0047 · Cited by 317
Metadata
- Authors
- Guignon, C.
- Corresponding author
- Guignon, Charles
- Venue
- Routledge eBooks
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2004-08-02
- OpenAlex
- W4237493127
- Cited by
- 382
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 27 · 2013: 31 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 2.86
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Routledge eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Modernity and Self-Identity
- Keywords
- authenticity, self-knowledge, self-help culture, Socrates, Augustine of Hippo, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Wordsworth, Romanticism, Sigmund Freud, Joseph Conrad, Alice Miller, postmodernism, dependency on others, Hamlet
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: On Being Authentic. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.4324/9780203646793
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- Guignon, C. (2004). On Being Authentic. Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203646793
