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After years of studying leaders and their traits, I believe that leadership begins and ends with authenticity. It’s being yourself; being the person you were created to be.

- George (2003: 11)

All metaphysics is Platonism

- Heidegger (1961/1991b: 202)

Introduction

In the wake of a series of corporate scandals, most notably the case of Enron, there has been a growing call for authentic leadership in order to ensure ethical conduct in post-bureaucratic organizations (Cooper, Scandura and Schriesheim, 2005). Rooted in the idea of being faithful to the ‘true self’, authentic leadership promises to solve the ‘ethical crisis’ (Algera and Lips-Wiersma, 2012) that we are currently witnessing in post-bureaucratic organizations by highlighting the importance of moral responsibility among leaders.

Prior to its fall, Enron was celebrated by management gurus, including Hamel, as a prime example of a post-bureaucratic organization based upon a ‘pro-entrepreneurship culture’ that had generated ‘a handful of radical new business concepts’ (Hamel, 2000: 211). After its fall, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggested that ‘trendy management theories’ should perhaps be considered ‘one force of evil’

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(2001). But post-bureaucratic management thinking suffered surprisingly little from the Enron scandal, although the ‘brightness of Hamel’s star was dimmed somewhat’ (Hindle, 2008: 246).

In the post-Enron era, we still find the rhetoric of post-bureaucratic management prevalent, and Hamel maintains his vision of filling firms with ‘gray-haired revolutionaries’ (2002: xi). Part of the explanation is that Enron has been viewed as an unfortunate isolated incidence in what is otherwise a solid ‘system’ (Grey, 2003). Part of the explanation should also be sought in the moral underpinning of the post-bureaucratic image of thought. In a typical bureaucracy, ethical conduct is ensured through what du Gay calls an ‘ethos’ that consist of ‘strict adherence to procedure, commitment to the purposes of the office, abnegation of personal moral enthusiasms and so on’ (2008: 338). By contrast, the model of the post- bureaucratic organization, characterized by decentralized networks, non- hierarchical structures and flexibility-enabling entrepreneurial activities (Garsten and Grey, 1997), replaces the bureaucratic ethics with individualized ‘self-responsibility’ (Cock and Böhm, 2007).

This allows proponents of post-bureaucracy to view the Enron debacle as being caused by a lack of personal moral responsibility, of ‘restless greed’ amongst the executives (see Stein, 2007). Within the post-bureaucratic image of thought, the concept of authentic leadership can be seen as an attempt to provide a moral foundation for the model of the post-bureaucratic organization. The reason that some post- bureaucratic organizations experience corruption and fraud is, because their executives have ‘forgotten or ignored […] the lessons of authenticity’ (Avolio, Gardner, Walumbwa, Luthans and May, 2004: 818). In light of this, it is important to recognize how the post-bureaucratic image of thought converts ethics into a question of individual accountability. This

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is reflected in the concept of authentic leadership in which ethics consists of configuring a true relationship towards oneself.

The concept of authentic leadership, however, depends upon the ability to draw a distinction between authentic and inauthentic leaders. If authentic leadership is to provide a moral foundation for the model of the post-bureaucratic organizations, it is necessary to distinguish those leaders who remain faithful to their true self from those leaders who betray their true self. According to Shamir and Eliam, authentic leaders are ‘originals, not copies’ (2005: 397). Yet, they maintain that it is ‘often difficult to distinguish the real from the copy’ (Shamir and Eliam, 2005: 408). Leaders committed to the concept of authentic leadership are confronted with the problem of ensuring to themselves and others that they act in accordance with their true self. But how do authentic leaders manage to distinguish their true self from their false self and prove to their employees that they are originals rather than copies?

In this chapter, I will show how Deleuze’s reading of Plato can help us comprehend and also challenge the procedure for drawing a distinction between authentic and inauthentic leaders. I will demonstrate how the concept of authentic leadership reproduces Plato’s problem of authenticating the leader – that is, drawing a distinction between the true claimant and the false pretender. In order to show this, I offer a discussion of Bill George’s (2003) book Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. Hansen, Ropo and Sauer (2007) emphasize that although there is a widespread call for authentic leadership, we still know little about how the process of becoming an authentic leader works. To answer the question of what separates authentic from inauthentic leaders, Cooper, Scandura and Schriesheim argue that scholars need to conduct ‘case studies of leaders who meet the current broad criteria for authenticity’ (2005: 479). They

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further add that an ‘obvious choice for a case study would be Bill George’ (Cooper et al., 2005: 479), former CEO of Medtronics. I will take up this challenge and inquire into George’s (2003) book Authentic Leadership, by discussing his technique for separating his true and false self.

Here I will argue that Deleuze’s (1997, 1968/2001, 1969/2004) reading of Plato’s dialogue Statesman can help us to more fully comprehend the procedure through which George (2003) attempts to show that he is an authentic rather than an inauthentic leader. In the Statesman, Plato argues that the difference between the authentic leader and the inauthentic pretender lies in their relationship to the model, designating the idea of the good leader. A model is a normative ideal from which leaders can be assessed. While the authentic leader remains faithful to the model, the inauthentic pretender is a simulacrum (false pretender). For Plato, the simulacrum is therefore a deceiving appearance that lacks resemblance to the model. I will show that we find a similar line of reasoning in George’s (2003) account of authentic leadership. In George’s narrative, he contrasts himself to the former CEO of Enron, Jeff Skilling, who is considered the incarnation of inauthentic leadership. To make this distinction, George introduces the model of the ‘moral compass’, which denotes ‘true North’. Using the criteria of the ‘moral compass’, George judges Skilling as equivalent to Plato’s conception of a simulacrum. George asserts that Skilling pretended to be a good leader but actually ignored his ‘moral compass’ and thus was a false claimant.

I will also argue that Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ enables us to flip the problem of authenticating the leader on its head. Deleuze’s purpose is not to simply present a clear explication of Platonism, but to perform an overturning of Platonism. For Deleuze, Platonism is a doctrine that consists of drawing a distinction between the authentic claimant and the

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inauthentic pretender (simulacrum) on the basis of a ‘model’. In Platonism, the model serves as a moral foundation for judging whether a claimant is authentic or not. This doctrine can be found in Plato’s dialogue Statesman, but Deleuze argues Plato’s dialogue Sophist represents a fundamental critique of Platonism.

In the Sophist, Plato attempts to demarcate the true claimant from the simulacrum (false pretender) without recourse to the model. But in the absence of the model, Deleuze notices that the sharp delineation between the true claimant and the simulacrum is blurred and that Platonism enters into a crisis. This crisis, in turns, opens up the possibility for a new conceptualization of the simulacrum, according to Deleuze. Deleuze contends that rather than being categorised as a false pretender that lacks resemblance to the model, the simulacrum must be evaluated on its own merits. In this way, Deleuze finds the basis for overturning Platonism in Plato’s dialogue Sophist.

I will show how Deleuze’s overturning of Platonism provides the basis for reversing the relationship between ethics and values assumed by the concept of authentic leadership. While the concept of authentic leadership presupposes that commitment to values in support of the collective good will secure ethical conduct, Deleuze perceives the commitment to values as hindering the occurrence of ethics (Smith, 2007b). As a result, Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ allows an understanding of authentic leadership that is not based on values, but rather involves a critique of the ‘value of values’ (1962/1983: 1), by examining the ways in which values are employed to legitimize decisions. This allows us to see how leaders sometimes commit unethical deeds not because they lack values but rather because they are seduced by their own value-commitments (Price, 2003).

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This chapter proposes that we need to reverse the standard commonly employed to draw a distinction between authentic and inauthentic leaders. I am not against the concept of authentic leadership. But I contend that instead of claiming that authentic leaders are good because they remain faithful to the core values, we should recognize that some leaders can use their core values to legitimize morally questionable decisions (Price, 2003). In order to construct a concept of authentic leadership that takes this into account, we need to invert the standards used to assess the authenticity of leaders. Although it is not my aim to offer a prescriptive concept that specify what an authentic leader should do, I will argue that that an reversed concept of authentic leadership should consider how ethics can occur when the authentic leader is able to critical reflect his or her own value-commitments. Being a reversed authentic leader will therefore involve being able to see how values can make oneself blind of ethical considerations. Viewed from this perspective, the difference between reversed authentic leader and inauthentic leader does not hinges on whether one remains faithful or betrays a set of values, but rather the ability to call into question one’s own value-commitments.

The first part of the chapter describes how theories of authentic leadership deal with the problem of distinguishing authentic from inauthentic leaders. In this section I show how critical scholars have subjected the predominant conceptualizations of authentic leadership to critical scrutiny. The second part introduces Deleuze’s reading of Plato, which can shed light on the problem of separating authentic claimants from false pretenders. The third part engages with George’s Authentic Leadership, in which he records his personal journey to become an authentic leader and presents his advice on how to become an authentic leader. Informed by Deleuze’s reading of Plato, I will trace the steps

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through which George distances himself from the former CEO of Enron, Jeffrey Skilling. The final part discusses how Deleuze’s ‘inverted Platonism’ enables us to reverse the relationship between ethics and values put forward by adherents of ‘authentic leadership’.