Sustaining Credible Leadership in Organizations

Abstract

The mainstream media in Kenya, Africa, and the world is full of scandalous information that questions the credibility of leaders who were thought to be effective. This is observable across all organization sectors from the religious, public sector, political and even the private sector and includes such practices as corruption, manipulation of data and financial information, leadership wrangles, sexual harassment, among other such accusations of sexual misconduct which touches on prominent and perceived effective leaders. This has brought about severe gaps in leadership credibility. This literature review study examines the construct leader’s credibility in the context of credible leadership. Discussions focus on the development of credible leadership and the practices that are critical for leaders to build and sustain credibility and authenticity based on literature from the last two decades. The two perspectives of practices described are trustworthiness and competence which provide significant applications for leaders in the current dynamic organization context. Keywords: Leadership, Credibility, Authenticity, Credible leadership, Authentic leadership, Organizational Context