Leadership in a Constant Liminal Loop: How can i be Authentic when i don't know who i am?

The search for leader authenticity implies that somewhere there is a true self. Yet the self, like anything else, is constantly changing, passing through a series of liminal phases. Authenticity, therefore, would capture the liminal condition within which all leaders operate. What this process yields, however, is a web of paradoxes, such as the need to stabilize while remaining open to a shifting reality and interpreting that reality at both the micro and the macro levels in a never‐ending loop known as the hermeneutic circle. Only a complex and fluid leader can cope with a complex and fluid reality. Fortunately, the literature presents a conceptual toolkit, including Boyd's OODA loop, paradoxical thinking, design thinking, and systems thinking–gathered in this article to assist the leader whose authentic self is always a work in progress.