Social media has become a powerful tool and the authors have been able to identify a sample of core dimensions that an authentic leader need to possess in order to be able to facilitate the increasing phenomenon and usage of social media in an effective way, i.e. transparency, flexibility, adaptability and trustworthiness.

With this investigation the authors aim to create an understanding of how authentic leaders deal with the on-going changes and rise of social media usage in their applied leadership approach and the investigation have reached a clarification of how authentic leaders adapt their leadership approach when utilising social media. The authors have selected an abductive research strategy and conducted twelve in-depth interviews to be able to analyse perceived authentic leadership in relation to the usage of social media, within diverse corporations in Sweden.

The vital connection between the usage of social media and authentic leadership has been proven through a combination of previous research and the author’s findings. By being authentic a leader possess the ability to optimistically welcome the challenge of social media usage for their corporation, and through that they can benefit from the positive consequences that social media usage actually brings. This investigation contributes to both leadership and social media literature by providing a new angle of the two phenomena’s in collaboration, which has not been investigated in previous research.