Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice

25

PURSUING AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Bruce J. Avolio

Introduction

My focus on understanding what constitutes exemplary leadership has followed many paths over the last two decades, but in aggregate it seems as though this journey may be best described as representing a reverse telescope effect. Like many in the field of leadership, I concentrated a lot of my early attention on what the leader was like, what the leader did, and how the leader performed. So, inside my telescopic view there was clearly one image that loomed large, and it covered most of the visual space. Only after a number of years of reflection did it become obvious to me that we also needed to pull back and look at the larger global context to see exactly where we were ...