Explain authentic leadership.

Answers will vary. Authentic leadership includes transformational, charismatic, or transactional leadership as the situation might demand but only in accordance with the leader's conscious and well-developed sense of values. Because authentic leaders act in ways that are consistent with their value systems, they have a highly evolved sense of moral right and wrong. Authentic leaders are self-aware, confident, optimistic, and resilient. They have a deep sense of self and act as role models to others by conveying what they believe and stand for.
Authentic leaders arouse and motivate followers to higher levels of performance by building a workforce characterized by high levels of hope, optimism, resiliency, and self-efficacy. Followers also experience more positive emotions and trust as a result of the authentic leader's transparency and the collective caring climate engendered by such a leader. Researchers contend that this is the kind of leadership embodied by Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and others like them throughout history. Only time and solid management research will tell if this approach can yield results for organizational leadership.
Authentic leadership produces authentic followers. When employees see a leader display genuine emotion, they are more likely to feel like they are free to be themselves at work. Authentic leaders also encourage followers to report wrongdoing in the organization. Followers of authentic leaders engage in internal whistleblowing because they work in a climate of psychological safety, modeled by the authentic leader. Authentic leadership can be learned. Becoming an authentic leader requires two processes, one social and one intrapersonal. The social process is the development of authentic relationships, and the intrapersonal process is gaining self-awareness and self-management skills. Please see the section "Recent Leadership Theories" for more information.