Abstract
The concept of authentic leadership rose to prominence through its idealization as an inherently moral and universally desirable trait. We problematize this romantic notion by exploring how the ‘authenticity’ of the CEOs of four major Australian banks was discursively constructed before and during the global financial crisis (GFC). Using multimodal discourse analysis of media texts, we show how what it meant to be an ‘authentic leader’ was co-constructed differently by the CEOs and the media. We also highlight the dynamic nature of context, where the GFC was variously framed by and for each of the CEOs. Our study challenges the acontextual notion of authentic leadership by showing how a discursively constructed context can reinforce or undermine leaders’ narratives of authenticity.
Within the field of leadership studies, an influential body of literature suggests that in order to lead effectively and foster a positive organizational climate, an individual needs to practice authentic leadership (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Avolio et al., 2004; Gardner et al., 2011). These calls to practice authentic leadership arose, at least in part, in response to the growing concerns about the ‘dark side’ of transformational leadership (Caza and Jackson, 2011; Ladkin and Spiller, 2013; Lawler and Ashman, 2012). In the face of these ethical concerns, authentic leadership promised a new breed of leaders who would, by virtue of being ‘true to themselves’, inspire confidence, optimism and trust (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999; George, 2003; Kouzes and Posner, 2002). Given these attributes and outcomes, proponents of authentic leadership went on to argue that it is particularly important to have authentic leaders in place when the organizational environment is complex and unpredictable (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Avolio et al., 2004; Luthans and Avolio, 2003). Moreover, they have asserted that leaders who practice authentic leadership are the best placed to guide us towards taking morally correct action during times of crisis (Avolio et al., 2004).
Given the simplification of authentic leadership as inherently and universally positive, it is perhaps not surprising that those studying it have not adopted an approach that accounts for the discursive, socially constructed nature of leadership (Fairhurst, 2009). In order to critically examine the concept of authentic leadership, we employ multimodal media discourse analysis (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998), which involves examining how visual and verbal elements in print media interact to convey leadership authenticity. In taking this approach, we answer the call for more extensive use of qualitative inquiry that is able to generate thick, nuanced descriptions of leadership processes and contexts (Fairhurst, 2009; Gardner et al., 2011), while using the rich empirical findings to problematize authentic leadership theory.
Our problematization joins the growing field of critical leadership scholarship that has in recent years attempted to challenge the entrenched romanticization of leadership in our culture (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Collinson, 2014; Guthey and Jackson, 2005; Kelly, 2014; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013; Śliwa et al., 2012). In this article, we challenge essentialist treatments of authentic leadership by exploring the ways in which authenticity was co-constructed by the CEOs of four major Australian retail banks and the print media in the lead up to and during the global financial crisis (GFC). In doing this, we ask two questions. First, what is the role of the media in constructing narratives of leadership? Second, how does context shape the construction of leadership narratives? Answering these questions allows us to contribute to critical and discursive studies of leadership (Collinson, 2014; Fairhurst, 2009; Ford and Harding, 2011; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013). In particular, we show how both leadership and context are discursively constructed and that being seen as authentic in the media is about the capacity of the leader to shape narratives about both their leadership and the context in which their leadership takes place.
Our article begins with a review of the authentic leadership literature, showing how concerns with ethics and morality in previous decades have shaped the development of this construct. We also provide an overview of the literature on the discursive construction of leadership and the literature that explores how context, in particular the GFC, is discursively constructed. Following this review, we introduce the study context, outlining key features of the Australian banking sector, and discuss its performance in the lead up to, and during, the GFC. We also introduce our study methods, detailing our multimodal discourse analysis of media texts about the CEOs. Our findings sections outline how authentic leadership is constructed in the media as well as the role of a discursively constructed context in shaping the ways the leaders are portrayed. We conclude with a discussion that critiques the concept of authentic leadership and contributes to an understanding of leadership as discursively constructed in context.
Authentic leadership in context
Over the past decade, authentic leadership has become one of the most influential constructs in leadership research (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005; Ilies et al., 2005; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; May et al., 2003). The development of authentic leadership theory was shaped by the critiques leveled at transformational leadership (Caza and Jackson, 2011). Transformational leadership focused on leaders who were able to craft a compelling vision that secured the identification and commitment of their followers (Bass et al., 1996; Bass and Avolio, 1993). In time, critical studies of transformational leadership identified its darker side, including leaders’ manipulation of followers and followers’ increasing dependence on leaders (Caza and Jackson, 2011; Tourish, 2013).
With the ethical basis of transformational leadership called into question, authentic leadership theory distinguished itself from the outset with claims to a strong moral component. Authentic leaders are said to know and trust their own thoughts, feelings, motives and values (Kernis, 2003) and possess a balanced perception of their strengths and weaknesses (Walumbwa et al., 2008). The authentic leader is said to have discovered his or her unique purpose through gaining an understanding of themselves: their passions and motivations (George, 2003; Kouzes and Posner, 2002). Equipped with a deep self-awareness, authentic leaders are said to engage in ‘self-regulation’ – a process of self-control to ensure that their actions are aligned with their values (Gardner et al., 2005). Their actions and values must be consistent if openness and trust is to be fostered between leaders and their followers (Gardner et al., 2005).
This concept of a true authentic self has been called into question (Ford and Harding, 2011; Lawler and Ashman, 2012). Rather than the idea of leaders effortlessly expressing a fixed, essentialized self, there is an increasing recognition that a leader’s identity is discursively constructed (Carroll and Levy, 2010; Ford et al., 2008; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013; Sveningsson and Larsson, 2006) and that what counts as leadership is negotiated between leaders and other actors (Fairhurst, 2009; Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012; Grint, 2005). This has led to a focus on studying leaders’ self-narratives and how these narratives are received by their audience (DeRue and Ashford, 2010; Weischer et al., 2013). In these narratives, other actors can play the role of supporting characters, be sources of inspiration, or can play an active role in the co-construction of leadership (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011; Fairhurst, 2009; Sparrowe, 2005). For high-profile leaders in particular, the media holds considerable influence over leaders’ public image (Amernic et al., 2007; Chen and Meindl, 1991; Liu and Baker, 2016; Sinha et al., 2012). Given the importance of the relationship between the media and leaders, we argue that we need a better understanding of the processes of leadership narrative co-construction between these actors. Accordingly, our first research question is: What is the role of the media in the construction of leadership narratives?
We ask this question in the context of the GFC. Discursive studies of the GFC have provided further insights into the relationship between constructions of leadership and context (de Cock et al., 2012; Morgan et al., 2011; O’Reilly et al., 2015). This body of literature has highlighted how leadership was both blamed for the crisis and heralded as the antidote (Liu, 2015a). Critical leadership scholars argue that this paradox exemplifies the problematic romanticization of leadership. They suggest that romanticizing leadership and holding it up as a panacea to society and business ills not only fuels the leadership development industry, but can also mean that we are not alert to abuses of leadership power (Alvesson and Spicer, 2012; Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003; Collinson, 2014; Kelly, 2014; Śliwa et al., 2012).
During the GFC, authentic leadership in particular was proposed as the cure to a climate of ambiguity and complexity (Chambers et al., 2010). Banking leaders supported this view and positioned themselves as part of the solution and not the problem, with financial institutions in the UK producing advertisements during the GFC that sought to convince the general public that they were stable and secure (de Cock et al., 2011). Banking CEOs’ testimonies to the UK Banking Crisis Inquiry in 2009 showed how they constructed themselves as passive victims of the crisis but the media still held them accountable (Tourish and Hargie, 2012). The media were aided in this construction of the CEOs by the Treasury Committee questioners who constructed the CEOs as greedy villains who brought down the economy (Whittle and Mueller, 2011).
The relationship between leadership and context has previously been explored by Grint (2005, 2010), who identified the capacity of leaders to frame the context so that it aligns with their preferred leadership style. Grint (2005) found that leaders could construct three types of situations – tame, wicked and critical, which corresponded with certain responses on the part of the leader. By constructing the context as tame, wicked or critical, leaders could convince their followers of the kind of action required. Although Grint (2005) highlights the malleable nature of context, his framework does not examine in-depth the role of other actors in co-constructing the context. Accordingly, our second question is: How does context shape the construction of leadership narratives?
Research context and methods
The global financial crisis and the Australian banking sector
To answer our two research questions, we explore the ways in which the CEOs of Australia’s four largest banks were portrayed in the media before and during the GFC. Commonly referred to together as the ‘Big Four’, these banks dominate the market and control 77.4% of the market share (worth A$2.4 trillion) as at September 2010 (ATC, 2011: 9). Against the backdrop of the GFC, questions about their CEOs’ leadership received extensive media attention. Australian banks were posting healthier profits in contrast to most other countries, while at the same time citing rising wholesale funding costs as they raised interest rates (Verrender, 2009). The banks ultimately emerged from the GFC stronger than when they entered, with three of Australia’s four banks having expanded their market share by acquiring smaller banks and taking over the business of non-bank lenders and mortgage brokers.
The GFC offers a rich context in which to explore the media construction of leaders and their authenticity before and during a crisis. Media research recognizes the central role played by the media in contemporary life as a primary source of understanding of the world. The media exists as a cultural intermediary through which the ‘shared meanings’ that constitute our culture are circulated, including our ideas and ideals of leadership (Chen and Meindl, 1991; Liu, 2010). Decisions about which stories to publish are not made in response to an impartial assessment of a story’s intrinsic importance, but rather what the wider audience sees in the media is the result of complex and arbitrary processes of selection and transformation, some of which are unconsciously practiced and sustained (Talbot, 2007).
In this article, we adopt an approach that brings to the fore the discursive construction of leadership (Fairhurst, 2007). In doing so, we recognize that the media articles we analyze are the media’s framing of what leaders say and do. Through interviews, press conferences, organizational documentation and other modes of communication, leaders produce and disseminate narratives about their leadership. At the same time, these narratives are subject to reframing by the media, and a leader’s perceived authenticity may be the beneficiary or casualty of this. In sum, what we ultimately see in print about a leader and their authenticity is a product of complex, ongoing processes between the leader and the media, who together co-construct multiple, dynamic, and at times contradictory representations of their leadership (Guthey and Jackson, 2005).
Data collection
For this study, media articles about the ‘Big Four’ bank CEOs were drawn from 16 major national and state/territory publications. Regional and suburban publications were excluded as their combined readership is less than one-third of national and state/territory newspapers and they tend to report on local news over stories that have national relevance such as the major banks (Australian Press Council, 2007: 16). Articles were collected via the Factiva database from the start of each CEO’s tenure, extending through the GFC until the cessation of extensive media coverage about the GFC in June 2010. Each article was reviewed to remove false hits and tangential references to the CEO with no information about their leadership, their bank or the GFC. A total of 626 articles of the CEOs were collected and 476 (76%) of these articles were able to be sourced in their original visual form via a microfilm database. Portions of the data have been analyzed in previous studies on the gendered construction of authenticity (Liu et al., 2015), the dramaturgy of the GFC (Liu, 2015a), and masculinity and ethical leadership (Liu, 2015b). The CEOs who form the sample for this study, their banks, time spans of their tenures, and number of collected articles and visual scans are presented in Table 1.
Sample of banking CEOs.
Data analysis
Although the term ‘discourse’ has been subject to considerable interdisciplinary debate, discourse analytic approaches within organization studies are broadly concerned with how social reality is constituted through the ‘talk and text’ that appears in language and other symbolic media (Grant et al., 2004). In line with this perspective, we follow those who have defined discourse as a form of social practice that reflects and shapes how we come to understand the world (Fairclough, 1992; Hardy et al., 2004; Jaworski and Coupland, 1999; van Dijk, 1997). As such, discourse refers to both language use in communicative interaction and wider systems of thought that dominate our views of social reality at any given moment in time (Fairhurst, 2009; Fairhurst and Connaughton, 2014). Integral to this approach is the understanding that discourse is inextricably linked to context (Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012; Grant et al., 2004).
To address the trend in print media towards more visually structured texts and the necessity of considering other semiotic activities in addition to language in discourse analysis (Iedema, 2007), our study adopts a multimodal approach. Our multimodal discourse analysis is grounded in the tradition of social semiotics that recognizes the interlinked and intertextual nature of the visual and verbal (Meyer et al., 2013). Neither can be fully understood in isolation, but rather, meaning is made through their interaction (Meyer et al., 2013). The multimodal analysis of the media data comprised four key stages. At each stage of the analysis, we checked our interpretations with one another to identify blind spots and consider alternate readings.
In the first stage of data analysis, the articles were coded for their references to authentic leadership traits and behaviors. The coding of the media data and the identification of constructs followed an iterative process, driven by both the data and theory. Coding proceeded via the a priori specification of the attributes of authentic leaders identified from the literature. This included references to behaviors of ‘confidence’, ‘resilience’, ‘hope and optimism’, ‘self-awareness and exposure’ and ‘moral character’ as proxies for authentic leadership as specified in the literature (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Avolio et al., 2004; Gardner et al., 2011; May et al., 2003). Table 2 presents the first-order constructs and representative excerpts from the data.
Data exemplars of first-order constructs.
During our initial coding of the media articles, we also highlighted metaphors that played a significant role in the media construction of the leaders. The analysis of metaphors in this study is executed at the ‘ground’ level, which considers both the specific metaphors utilized (or the ‘source domain’) and the object to which they are applied (the ‘target domain’) (Oswick and Montgomery, 1999). This allowed us to reveal the attitudes that metaphorical descriptions convey about the leader, their organization and the context.
The second stage of analysis involved interpreting meaning behind newspaper layouts, including the use of graphic elements (e.g. photographs, cartoons, figures and graphs), relative saliencies and framing devices, in addition to the written text itself (Bell, 1998). In this stage, media articles were coded using Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1998) framework, and portraits were analyzed using Gardner and Avolio’s (1998) dramaturgical framework. Kress and van Leeuwen (1998) propose two broad steps in the reading of a newspaper page. The first step arises from the assumption that newspaper front pages are complex signs created to invite the reader deeper into its contents and thus involve an initial reading of the entire page as one sign. The second step uncovers a deeper, more specific meaning through the ‘signifying systems’ of the layout. Examining the signifying systems of the layout involves simultaneously interpreting the informational value (placement on page), salience (e.g. size) and framing (links between elements) of the text (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998).
In the media reporting of leaders, visual portraits often become important sites for the construction of leadership identity (Guthey and Jackson, 2005). Following this approach, in the third stage of analysis, we paid particular attention to the visual representations of CEOs in the media reports we had gathered. Gardner and Avolio’s (1998) dramaturgical framework was used for this analysis to identify the role of staging, casting and ‘costume’ in the portraits. The dramaturgical framework allowed finer examinations into how a leader’s placement, gaze, pose, dress and the portrait’s casting and scene can be utilized to enhance or challenge authenticity. To demonstrate how these frameworks have been used in this study, an example of the analysis applied to an article of Ralph Norris, CEO of CBA, is presented in Figure 1.
‘Mentoring program is straight from the art’, The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 2008.
The analysis of Figure 1 begins with an initial reading of the newspaper page in its entirety. The dominating size of Norris’s photograph marks it as the start of the reading path and communicates the notion that he is the central message of this newspaper page. In the photograph, Norris is staged at an art exhibition and appears to be engaged in relaxed conversation with two high school students. The students are turned towards Norris, their eye lines drawing the focus to him, enhancing a sense of connection and intimacy. This is reinforced with the photograph’s caption that describes the scene as ‘building a bond’.
However, rather than being led to the accompanying article about him below, the largest headline of the page redirects the reader’s attention to the top half of the page. This article, ‘Crisis of confidence drives market down’, highlights the significant consequences of the economic downturn. It includes a headshot of Sir Rod Eddington, the newly appointed chairman of CBA’s rival, ANZ. Only after the top article is scanned does the reading path return to Norris’s article at the bottom of the page. Having established that the economy is anxiously facing a downturn, the headline, ‘Mentoring program is straight from the art’ with its light-hearted play on the phrase ‘straight from the heart’, appears trivial in comparison.
The verbal descriptions within the article expose Norris’s philanthropic pursuits, relaying that he ‘showed his generous side at a special art exhibition’. It also highlights Norris’s humility in his admission that through his meeting with Cabramatta High School’s principal, ‘I’ve benefited more than I could ever have imagined’. The construction of Norris’s moral character is reinforced via a quote from the high school principal who stresses that, ‘mentoring is the purest kind of relationship … there is absolutely no agenda other than people wanting to help each other. It is all from the heart, and quite genuine’.
The reading path concludes with the articles located in the left-hand column of the page, which from top to bottom reads, ‘A growing concern’, ‘Stockland denies bid’ and ‘Metcash $24m cost’. These three headlines echo a sense of pessimism and anxiety over the economy communicated through the top-most article of the page. Thus, when the newspaper page is read as a whole, it demonstrates that media constructions of leaders are shaped by more than the verbal text itself.
As we moved iteratively between the first-order constructs and the verbal and visual data analysis, we refined, aggregated and linked our themes arising from our coding to second-order constructs: coherence, consistency and conformity. Figure 2 provides our data structure, which outlines first-order constructs, statements and visuals that relate to these themes and our final constructs (Gioia et al., 2013).
Data structure.
Our final stage of analysis involved coding for context – in particular, the ways the CEOs and the media constructed the GFC. For example, we noted the metaphors of the GFC (e.g. storm, carnage and darkness) and what was constructed as the necessary response (e.g. steady navigation of the bank, immediate and drastic action, and cautious optimism). We present the media constructions of the GFC, highlighting the metaphors and imagery they evoked, in Table 3.
Constructions of the global financial crisis.
We now present our analysis of the findings before we move on to discuss their implications for authentic leadership and discursive studies of leadership more broadly.
Research findings: Coherence, consistency and conformity in context
Our multimodal discourse analysis of the collected media articles about the four banking CEOs led to the identification of leadership narratives comprising three key dimensions: coherence, consistency and conformity. We found that for a leadership narrative to be taken up positively by the media it needed to convey a coherent identity and a consistent leadership approach, and conform to social norms. Furthermore, we found that what was discursively constructed as coherent, consistent and conformist depended on the context in which the CEO operated – in this case, the GFC – and the GFC was not fixed, but was itself discursively constructed. In the following sections, we explore this dynamic in relation to the three dimensions of leadership narratives identified in our analysis.
Coherence
The importance of a coherent leadership narrative was highly apparent in the case of John Stewart, who was appointed to NAB in 2004. His appointment followed the departure of his predecessor during a foreign exchange scandal in which losses of A$360 million had been hidden (Hughes, 2004). Although Stewart revealed a number of pastimes in media interviews, his love of sailing was most frequently cited by the media and came to be strongly associated with his identity. Stewart offered nostalgic anecdotes about dropping out of university because he was ‘more interested in scuba diving and sailing’ (Boreham, 2004: 31) and made mention of his ‘old sailing pal’ (Gluyas, 2006: 33). For Stewart, being a sailor from an early age reflects the proto-story of leadership development as a natural process (Shamir and Eilam, 2005). Sailing, and by association his leadership, is then constructed as a part of who he is and as influencing his everyday actions and behaviors: National Australia Bank boss John Stewart is relaxing in shorts and moccasins at a waterfront café in Melbourne when something catches his eye – a reflection in the café window. ‘Oooh, look at that,’ he says admiringly in a thick Scottish brogue. Stewart, though, is not in the clammy grip of a mid-life crisis. An avid sailor with a frustratingly full diary, he has just spotted the sleek lines of one of ABN AMRO’s two ocean racing yachts. (Gluyas, 2006: 33)
Sailing became a powerful metaphor for Stewart’s leadership. For example, Stewart adopted nautical metaphors in his mission to ‘stabilize the ship’ (MacDonald, 2004: 21) and admitted to ‘facing headwinds’ (Jimenez, 2005: 21). Consequently, prior to the GFC, Stewart was being constructed in the media as having ‘a steady grip on the tiller’ (Hughes, 2005: 19).
From mid-2008, when reports of the GFC began appearing in articles about Stewart, the media used storm metaphors to describe what was happening and Stewart’s capacity to handle the crisis: ‘Stewart sails through the wild credit storm’ (Stevens, 2008b: 31), ‘Stewart steers a safe course home’ (Durie, 2008c: 35), and ‘Stewart’s steady hand on tiller has worked again’ (John, 2008b: 40). These media portrayals position Stewart as the seasoned sailor steering the bank to safety.
Hand-in-hand with portrayals of the GFC as a storm, media articles heavily emphasized the metaphor of the NAB as a ship. For example, ‘Stewart described NAB as an offshore racing yacht that had spent four years getting ready for the winds to change’ (Stevens, 2008b: 31), ‘Stewart could engage you with all sorts of sailing analogies as to just how the bank “reefed” its mainsail heading into the sub-prime crisis’, and ‘NAB battened down the hatches’ (John, 2008b: 40). Describing the bank as a ship, allowed the media to reiterate Stewart’s capabilities and experience: ‘when Typhoon Sub-Prime hit, skipper and crew were ready, willing and able to rapidly reset SS NAB’ (Stevens, 2008b: 31). Visual representations of Stewart reinforced the sailing metaphors by photographing or illustrating him aboard a yacht, and placing these portraits in central positions of newspaper pages to powerfully enhance Stewart’s leadership image. In Figure 3, Stewart is depicted in the cartoon steering a boat with the NAB logo on its sail, leaving in his wake dark clouds on the horizon and jagged rocks in the water. It provides a vivid example of how Stewart’s narrative as a sailor had become increasingly synonymous with his leadership after the GFC.
John Stewart in The Australian, 10–11 May 2008.
Consistency
In addition to a coherent identity, the banking CEOs also needed to be seen to be responding to the GFC that was consistent with past leadership narratives. Mike Smith was appointed CEO at ANZ in October 2007. At Smith’s appointment, there was a lot of focus on his colorful history as the head of HSBC’s Argentine operations during the country’s economic crisis in the 1990s. This background, coupled with his British nationality and interest in the luxury brand sports car, Aston Martin, shaped an association between him and James Bond, where Smith became characterized as ‘cool’ (Greenblat, 2007: 46), ‘suave’ (Stevens, 2007: 21) and ‘charismatic’ (Jimenez, 2007b: 33). With headlines such as ‘Banker brings 007 style to ANZ job’ (Greenblat, 2007: 46) and ‘Aston Martins at 007 paces’ (Haynes, 2007: 66), the media highlighted Smith’s similarities with the fictional character to frame his past success during an economic crisis: You’d be hard pressed to find anyone as close to a real-life James Bond as the new head of ANZ Bank. Michael Smith once headed HSBC’s Argentine operations as a crisis gripped the nation, forcing the government to freeze all bank withdrawals. In 1999 in Buenos Aires, Mr Smith’s car was riddled by bullets in an apparent ambush, although he managed to outrun his assailants after smashing his blood-splattered car into their vehicle. ‘It was real James Bond stuff,’ Mr Smith told Time magazine last year. That was two years after he and 1000 HSBC employees were trapped in the office as protesters outside tried to burn the building down … he also revealed this week his love of Aston Martins and it’s believed he has as many as 10 of the Bond vehicles back at home in the UK. (Haynes, 2007: 66)
The article offered a glimpse into Smith’s luxurious lifestyle that boasts an Aston Martin collection after cataloguing the dangerous situations he has faced, depicting a leader whose daringness appeared to come effortlessly. In this way, the media and Smith were complicit in drawing comparisons with James Bond, while offering his past leadership success as evidence of his inherent composure in the face of adversity.
In line with this coherent hyper-masculinist identity, Smith demonstrated a consistently tough approach. When the GFC emerged, Smith and the media enhanced the crisis through metaphors of violence and war: ‘the world was experiencing a “financial services bloodbath”’ (Moncrief, 2008: 1); ‘we’re looking at an Armageddon situation’ (Gluyas, 2008: 1); and ‘the U.S. sub-prime implosion and resulting global liquidity freeze are “very serious”, making casualties in Australia inevitable’ (Gluyas, 2007c: 27). The imagery of carnage and casualties heightened a sense of chaos and supported the necessity for a drastic, decisive response.
Smith’s decisive response came in the form of two rapid acquisitions in 2009: Royal Bank of Scotland’s (RBS) Asian businesses in August and ING (with whom it shared a joint venture) in September. Smith’s aggressive strategy for Asian expansion was lauded in the media, and his consistently tough approach was underscored through references to him as ‘the angriest man in Australian banking’ (Sainsbury, 2009: 21) and as ‘plainly not a man to sit on fences’ (Stevens, 2009: 21).
This construction of Smith was supported by prominently displayed visual depictions of Smith as a focused and determined change agent, and alluded to his comparison with James Bond. Figure 4 shows a close-up photographic profile of Smith, building a heightened sense of interest and intrigue by obscuring the lower part of his face with a blurred sign in the foreground and focusing on his eyes. The wide framing of the photograph resembles a reflection in a rear-view mirror, and draws connections with the media’s past construction of Smith as the daring, sports car-driving James Bond persona.
Mike Smith in The Age, 31 March 2006.
Whereas Smith’s decisive and aggressive approach was constructed as consistent, the CEO of Westpac, Gail Kelly, came to be portrayed negatively when her leadership decisions were seen to be inconsistent with her past leadership narrative. Kelly, who joined Westpac when it acquired a smaller bank, St George, was portrayed as a natural intermediary between the two merging banks. This was reflected in articles such as, ‘St George is ripe for a takeover by a larger player and this just seems such a natural fit’ (Maxwell, 2008, n.p.) and ‘Kelly … knows the business intimately and is the world’s best qualified executive to meld the two banks into one unit’ (Verrender, 2008b: 47). By drawing on organic metaphors such as ‘ripe’, the article enhances the sense that the merger requires a careful touch to nurture. Rather than being described as commanding the merger, Kelly is tasked with ‘melding the two banks’.
This relational image also aligned with the way in which Kelly and the media constructed her leadership narrative as emblematizing a commitment to family-friendly policies and practices. She was reported as being a ‘big believer in work/life balance [and] the importance of flexibility in the workplace’, and quoted as saying that ‘practices of flexibility and practices of encouraging people to live whole lives are principles which I have believed in all my life’ (Korporaal, 2007: 5). Visual portrayals of Kelly enhanced a warm and relational image. Portraits commonly cast her with others in two-shot frames engaged in an amicable handshake or cheerful laughter (see Figure 5).
Gail Kelly in The Australian, 17 May 2008.
Media portrayals of Kelly changed in December 2009 when she acted decisively by raising interest rates ahead of the other three banks and became the subject of significant media criticism. The media disputed her decision and described the rate increase as ‘supercharged’ (Johnston, 2009: 1) and ‘turbo-charged’ (Evans, 2009: 9). Media representations focused on the inconsistency between such a decisive move and Kelly’s relational leadership narrative, particularly when the decision was framed as affecting customers. When seeming to uphold the interests of the bank above her customers, Kelly came to be represented in the media as lacking moral character: Quite obviously this decision was totally the wrong thing to do by customers and families. It was flint-hearted. It sits oddly with the kind of rhetoric we saw from Gail Kelly upon her appointment as CEO, where she talked at length about her family-minded approach to work. (Penberthy, 2009: 22)
Conformity
Being decisive was not only seen as inconsistent for Kelly, but she was also seen as failing to conform to the gender stereotype of women as nurturers rather than change agents. Conversely, narratives of Stewart and Smith’s decisiveness enhanced their media portrayals as it remained in line with stereotypes of masculinity. Ralph Norris, who was appointed to Australia’s largest bank, CBA, in September 2005, was also constructed as inauthentic when he failed to conform to Australian cultural norms. At his appointment, the media cited his past success as the CEO of Air New Zealand and Auckland Savings Bank where he significantly improved performance (Gluyas, 2005). The fact that Norris was a New Zealander was made to matter by the media, despite the fact that the other three CEOs were all born overseas. Norris was portrayed as a distant and diffident ‘outsider’ who was unable and unwilling to identify with the Australian public. This was underscored through stories about his preference for owning property in New Zealand over Sydney: ‘the normally camera-shy Kiwi yesterday admitted to being shocked at Sydney house prices and relieved he still owns property across the Tasman’ (Kaye, 2006: 58). Similarly, his recruitment, as a New Zealander, to an Australian Bank and his subsequent hiring of several senior managers from New Zealand was used against him, as was his support for New Zealand’s rugby team: ‘half of Commonwealth Bank’s 12-strong senior management team, notably including chief executive and All Blacks fanatic Ralph Norris, hail from the Shaky Isles’ (Gluyas, 2010: 25).
The emergence of the GFC was predominantly depicted in articles about Norris via metaphors of darkness and shadows: ‘the global credit squeeze is causing pain and clouding the outlook’ (Maiden, 2008: 12). Norris’ bank, CBA, became increasingly characterized via metaphors as a predator: ‘this credit crisis, then, is an opportunity for all the major banks; and the biggest bank of all has a unique chance to pounce on weaker players. CBA is on the prowl, make no mistake’ (West, 2008: 10). When Norris acted, acquiring BankWest in October 2008, he was described as ‘opportunistic’ (Johnston, 2008b: 30) and aggressive: ‘[Norris] used CBA’s $400 billion balance sheet to stare down the wounded HBOS, itself locked in a sales process as part of survival talks’ (Johnston, 2008a: 2).
Visual depictions frequently utilized cartoons to emphasize Norris’s power, while calling his moral character into question. In the cartoon in Figure 6, Norris is illustrated raising interest rates by the turning of a dial, which exaggerates the sense of ease with which such powerful decisions that affect the Australian public are made. Visual portraits such as this utilized varied techniques to enhance his media representation as lacking in moral character. Photographs frequently evoked pessimism and rarely showed him wearing anything other than a dark business suit, standing at a podium mid-speech, and wearing a solemn expression. Composition also played a key role: Norris’s portraits would be small in size compared with other photos and placed in the corners of newspaper pages to minimize any sense of his leadership ‘presence’ during the GFC. Moreover, where smiling portraits of him were occasionally used, as demonstrated previously in Figure 1, they were surrounded by headlines of negative news stories, which encouraged the perception of Norris as out of touch.
Ralph Norris in The Australian, 12 July 2008.
Context
The GFC impacted on the Australian economy as a whole and the major banks similarly, yet throughout its duration, it was constructed differently for each of the major banks by their CEO and the media. For NAB and ANZ, the GFC was saliently depicted as an urgent crisis through metaphors of natural disasters and violence. These constructions of the GFC served the CEOs of NAB and ANZ well, primarily because it enabled them to reproduce their past narratives of heroic leadership that aligned with a context of crisis. NAB’s John Stewart championed himself, and was championed by the media, as a confident, resilient and steady leader, while ANZ’s Mike Smith had been portrayed as a daring but experienced change agent who was well-suited to deliver for his bank during this time. In stark contrast, the CEOs of Westpac and CBA were challenged during the GFC because their leadership was not perceived to align with the way the crisis had been constructed in relation to these two banks. Westpac’s Gail Kelly was criticized for moving from her previously celebrated nurturing leadership style to a more decisive form of leadership, and whereas the GFC was constructed as uncertain and ambiguous for CBA, its CEO was portrayed as powerful, inaccessible and unconcerned about his customers.
Our study demonstrates that context played a significant role in mediating the co-creation of leadership narrative between leaders and the media. To be portrayed as an ‘authentic leader’, CEOs needed to present a leadership narrative that is not only consistent and coherent, but also conforms to social norms and expectations in context. Moreover, the context itself was dynamic and discursively constructed. The varying ways in which the leaders and the media depicted the GFC called for different responses to the crisis, which also needed to cohere with their past narratives in order for the leader to be attributed with the qualities of authentic leadership. An overview of how the GFC was metaphorically constructed for each of the four bank CEOs is set out in Table 4. The table includes an illustrative excerpt from the data of how the media reported each leader’s response to the GFC, followed by a further illustration of how they were ultimately appraised by the media.
Media constructions of CEOs’ leadership through the global financial crisis.
Discussion
Our research contributes to an understanding of the role of the media in co-constructing portrayals of ‘authentic leadership’, and explains how context, which itself is discursively constructed, shapes the social construction of leadership narratives. In making this contribution, we problematize authentic leadership theory and its idea that authentic leadership comes from an inner ‘true self’ (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Gardner et al., 2005; Ilies et al., 2005; Luthans and Avolio, 2003; May et al., 2003).
Moreover, we join others in rejecting the notion that ‘authentic leaders’, who are lauded as intrinsically moral, values-driven and altruistic, provide an antidote to business and societal problems (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003; Ford and Harding, 2011; Guthey and Jackson, 2005; Lawler and Ashman, 2012; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013; Śliwa et al., 2012). In line with other critical leadership scholars, we argue that such idealized notions of authentic leadership overlook the role of power in the co-construction of leadership narratives as well as within the socio-historical context in which leadership takes place. We show that rather than authenticity being an essentialized trait, it is a discursive construct, and the capacity for leaders to influence their authentic leadership narratives is shaped by power dynamics including gender and cultural norms.
Employing a discursive perspective (Fairhurst, 2009; Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012) and multimodal methods (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1998, 2001) allowed us to demonstrate the micro-level processes through which authentic leadership is co-constructed between leaders and other actors. In particular, we highlight the role of the media in the active construction of leaders’ narratives (Amernic et al., 2007; Chen and Meindl, 1991; Liu and Baker, 2016; Sinha et al., 2012). Analyzing the media construction of leadership has allowed us to call into question the notion that leaders have a true self and that their values, beliefs and attitudes will be accepted by others as ‘authentic’ (Avolio et al., 2004; Avolio and Gardner, 2005; George, 2003). Although leaders can attempt to communicate desirable self-narratives through their speeches, interviews and autobiographies, the findings of this study suggest that the media can choose to reinforce or challenge these narratives. As such, the relational and interpretive process of co-construction that we have highlighted is not one in which either of these parties always has full control over the meaning that emerges.
Further, by examining how CEO portraits visually shape an authentic leadership narrative, our study also contributes to the field of visual research in organization studies (Bell and Davison, 2013; Meyer et al., 2013). Our findings show how authentic leadership can be constructed or challenged via the interaction between both the visual and verbal structures of the text, thereby building on previous studies that show how visual portraits constitute sites for the construction of leadership identity (Davison, 2010; Guthey and Jackson, 2005; Liu and Baker, 2016).
Specifically, we show how the media construction of what might be considered an ‘authentic leadership’ narrative involves not simply recounting the life story disclosed by a leader (Shamir and Eilam, 2005; Sparrowe, 2005), but selecting and organizing the fragmentary life events shared by the leader into some sort of coherent and consistent narrative identity. Providing the media with the material that could be used to invoke effective leadership metaphors was particularly important to the discursive construction of authenticity for Stewart and Smith. In contrast, heroic metaphors were not saliently invoked by or for Kelly and Norris, and this impacted negatively on their discursive construction as ‘authentic leaders’.
Our findings also demonstrate that a discursive perspective allows a deeper consideration of context and its influence in processes of social construction (Fairhurst, 2009). Adopting this view allowed us to explore the links between context and leadership. Specifically, we were able to show how the context of the GFC was continually being reframed in the leaders’ narratives and not the kind of static backdrop that is often assumed to exist in the authentic leadership literature (Avolio and Gardner, 2005; Avolio et al., 2004). A disregard for context is characteristic of the prevailing individualistic focus of leadership models that fuel the leadership development industry (Ford and Harding, 2011; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013). In contrast, we contribute to an understanding that leadership is shaped by and shapes context. We do this by showing how, over time, the GFC was variously depicted by, and for, each of the banking CEOs through an array of metaphors and imagery. Significantly, we found that at a single point in time the GFC was constructed differently depending on which CEO and which bank was being narrated. These different constructions of the GFC were used to support or undermine the leaders’ narratives. In short, we found that leaders are not always able to shape context as they may wish; other actors, in this case the media, may have some influence.
We show that ‘context’ comprised not just the GFC, but also a set of broader social and historical factors. In particular, Norris and Kelly’s cases enabled us to show that a leader’s narrative needs to align with the norms of the wider socio-historical context to be constructed as authentic. For instance, gender norms shaped the kinds of behaviors expected from the CEOs, where narratives that conformed to gender stereotypes were often depicted as more authentic (Liu et al., 2015). We see this in the way that Smith’s hyper-masculinity was rewarded in the media, whereas Kelly was portrayed as ‘inauthentic’ when she acted in ways that were inconsistent with feminine stereotypes. In contrast to the reductionistic treatment of context in authentic leadership theory, we offer a multi-level view of context (Fairhurst, 2009) that allows us to provide a contextualized understanding of leadership.
Study limitations and future research
The limitations to our study point to a need for further research into the discursive construction of leadership in context. First, our study focused on the role of the media, but it was beyond the scope of the study to examine in detail the agency of the CEOs (and their public relations teams) in deliberately crafting authentic leadership narratives. Future research could more extensively explore the intentions of CEOs by conducting interviews with leaders themselves.
Second, we were able to analyze print media owing to the availability of data and the substantial audience of the major national and metropolitan newspapers (Schulze, 2009). However, given the growing significance of new forms of media, particularly online newspapers, blogs and social media, future research could gain new insights by examining how representations of authentic leadership are constructed online.
Third, exploring how representations of banking CEOs shifted during the GFC highlighted the value of examining the role of context in authentic leadership over a relatively short timescale. Future studies could explore the representation of leadership authenticity shifts throughout a CEO’s career as they traverse multiple contexts. Leadership should not be examined in isolation from the historical context of the leader, organization or industry, where, for example, public distrust of leaders impacts how ‘authenticity’ plays out. Future studies that adopt a longitudinal view will have the capacity to reveal how historical events and public perception of an organization or industry sector inform constructions of authentic leadership.
Related to context and our study limitations, we also acknowledge that the economic impact of the GFC in Australia where the study occurred was less severe compared with elsewhere. This, in part, meant that the banking CEOs and the media had considerable scope on how to frame the GFC, often independent of the material financial effects on their banks or the Australian economy. Bearing this in mind, and given the varying effects of the GFC on different economies and banking systems, a study comparing banking CEOs and authentic leadership across two or more countries might be expected to reveal a number of differences in the way that their leadership narratives were constructed in the media.
Conclusion
Our article demonstrates that leadership narratives are co-constructed by leaders and the media and mediated by context, such that what it means to be or not to be an ‘authentic leader’ comes about through ongoing, interpretive processes of social construction. Being authentic is not, as much of the literature suggests, about ‘being true to oneself’ (Gardner et al., 2005; George, 2003; Ilies et al., 2005; Kouzes and Posner, 2002; Luthans and Avolio, 2003); rather, it is about the co-construction of a leadership narrative that is seen to be coherent and consistent, and conforms to the socio-historical norms of the context. Context cannot be dismissed as merely backdrop because, as we show, it is both multi-leveled and malleable. Equally, the media can frame the context in ways that undermine a leader’s narrative.
Given these findings, our study calls into question how ‘authentic leadership’ is currently conceptualized. This highly influential theory has perpetuated the idea that authenticity simply emanates from the leader. We show how what it means to be considered authentic has more to do with the leader’s capacity to control how their leadership and the context in which their leadership takes place are discursively constructed, not just by them but also by other actors. In deconstructing authentic leadership in this article, we highlight the need for future leadership theorizing to move beyond the romantic ideals of leadership that it is currently based upon, and critically engage with the processes that underpin its social construction.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers and Associate Editor Nick Turner for their invaluable advice in developing this article. We are also grateful to Anne Ross-Smith, Ray Gordon and Brad Jackson for their guidance and support as the examiners of this doctoral research.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.