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Bruce J. Avolio and Fred Luthans. The High Impact Leader: Moments Matter in Accelerating Authentic Leadership Development. New York: McGraw Hill, 2006. 273 pp. Cloth: $27.95. ISBN-13: 978-0071-444-13.
Bruce J. Avolio and Fred Luthans, both professors holding endowed chairs at the University of Nebraska, provide a helpful theoretical and practical introduction to Authentic Leadership Development (ALD). The authors' stated goal is to "identify what the authentic leadership process truly looks like" (p. 5) and to guide readers on a journey into "high-impact leadership" by means of a methodology, a range of related exercises, and a rationale for increased self-awareness, selfregulation, and self-efficacy. They define Authentic Leadership Development as:
The process that draws upon a leader's life course, psychological capital, moral perspective, and a "highly developed" supporting organizational climate to produce greater self-awareness and self-regulated positive behaviors, which in turn foster continuous, positive self-development resulting in veritable, sustained performance. (p. 2)
In short, the concept of Authentic Leadership Development emphasizes authenticity-being true to and aware of one's self and others-as the key to effective leadership. The authors understand ALD as involving a process that occurs across one's life span, both in the gradually unfolding experiences of life and in one's responses to unexpected positive or negative events.
Early in the book, a practical chapter on "Mapping the Journey of ALD" provides guidelines for each of four components that contribute to Authentic Leadership Development: self-awareness, self-regulation, self-development, and a new level of ALD (p. 64).
Chapter 3 provides a helpful summary of the past century of research on leadership interventions and development. Doctoral students in the recently created Gallup Leadership Institute program at the University of Nebraska-which the authors hope will become the "Bell Labs" for leadership development research (p. 47)-were tasked...