Normative Leadership: The Four Components Of Normative Leadership

Normative leadership theories explain to leaders how to manage their different responsibilities, raise the moral performance inside the working group, address community needs, avoid manipulative operations and concentrate on the requirements of the followers. It is important to understand that descriptive theories actually describe how the leaders should act and normative theories tell leaders how they should act. (Johnson, 2001) These theories are based on moral principles and norms and present the guidelines to encourage the ethical leader behavior. According to the books of Craig E. Johnson, it is possible to emphasize four types of normative leadership theories: transformational leadership, servant leadership: authentic leadership, and Taoism. This paper presents the overview of the authentic leadership.

To begin with, it is necessary to understand that authenticity has four components: relational transparency, balance processing, self-awareness, and perspective. (Johnson, 2012) Rational transparency means presenting a real self to others, and expressing only the true feelings, thoughts and emotions appropriate for a situation. Balance processing refers to remaining as objective as possible when receiving information. In fact, inauthentic actions cause denying, ignoring, and distorting the feedback a person just do not want to hear or see. Professionals should be ready to face the fact that they sometimes they may be not very good at certain activities like football,