The Search for Meaning: Redefining or Undermining Authenticity?

This chapter employs analytic autoethnography to explore and reflect on the author’s quest for meaning and whether this redefines or undermines the concept of authenticity as interpreted by the primary advocates of authentic leadership. The data starts from author’s studies in the Air Force Engineering Military Academy. Turcan develops the typology of search for meaning and its four types: dreamlanding; self-actualising; missing out; and self-transcending. The meaning of life is conspicuously absent from the authentic leadership literature and yet if a leader does not address it how can they function effectively as a leader? This typology may guide future research at this intersection.