Authenticity Demands Leadership
/Lots of us are capable of opening core-to-core channels with other individual human beings, but leaders need structures to move a whole community. Leaders need to be conscious that it is what they focus their attention on that actually dictates the behaviour of others. If we focus on trying to ‘get’ our employees to ‘be’ like we want them to be – bright, compliant, energetic, responsible, communicative, dedicated, enthusiastic, right, pacy, successful– then we inevitably stand in judgement over them, and set up that destructive dynamic where they will try and please us.
When people feel judged they defend themselves and are motivated to survive and stay safe, as opposed to being motivated to take responsibility. Since we humans are hard wired to survive, rather than being hard wired to flourish, when we commune together under a judgemental manager, we collude to survive; to stay firmly in our comfort zones, and in so doing we create a corporate comfort zone – a culture.
If we focus on how our people ‘are’ and work with them to be at their very best, then we have the capacity to achieve extraordinary things.
This all demands leadership. Since unconscious and habitual behaviours are coming from pretence at the moment, leaders have to break the cycle with feedback, making this conscious and giving awareness to people so that they have a chance to choose a conscious strategy. It’s all part of focusing on people and not pushing for results - trusting that if we do the right things the best possible results will come.
Leaders who are pretending to be polished, competent and perfect, have real difficulty in handling behaviour that does not conform. However, rarely does true authenticity come in a beautiful package. It can often be awkward, clumsy and over emotional. Who we really are as human beings is both beautiful and ugly; both perfect and flawed. And if leaders are only prepared to sit with the beautiful and perfect, sending strong signals that the ugly and flawed bits are unacceptable, then people will go back to pretending again.
And I’ve seen many leaders earnestly try and ‘be’ authentic at work, going through a rather ridiculous process of ‘manufacturing’ an authentic version of themselves that they can roll out at work. I really do blame the business schools and the advanced leadership courses for this dynamic. I worked with a very senior VP client and in our penultimate session gave him this feedback, that I felt he was working hard to manufacture his authenticity in his role, rather than gloriously allowing himself to be himself. I felt he had two versions – the ‘Clever’ version that he’d cultivated and the ‘Human’ version that he really didn’t let anyone see. And yet he was a truly beautiful human being, with a wonderful family and profound artistic talents. I knew the feedback would hurt, but I judged that with one session to come, we had sufficient time to work through this to an accommodation that would be helpful for him.
He was offended by my feedback, and soon after ended our coaching relationship. Of course he did not tell me the truth. He merely got his PA to e-mail me to say that he’d got everything he could from the coaching and did not need the final session. It was very polite and indeed positive, thanking me for what I’d done. But I knew he was angry with me. I could not leave things like that, and I managed to persuade him to do the final session. I started the session by repeating the feedback, and saying that I felt his response was a really good example of what I had observed. I asked him to be honest with me and tell me how he felt about my feedback. It took several goes but eventually he looked me in the eyes and told me that he’s been really pissed off with me. It was the first time he’d been really honest, and the effect on me was profound. I started to cry – the connection I felt with him because he’d finally been authentic was just incredibly moving. And he felt it too. We had a fantastic final session, very real and very authentic. He’d got it.
If we are really going to encourage people to be honest, say it how it is for them, come close to who they really are, then we need to accept that it will not be comfortable. Great leaders understand this and work with what’s in front of them. They open the core to core channel, and then exploit them in pursuit of the purpose.
Recommended Article: What is Authenticity?
About the Author: Gareth Chick is a 40 year corporate veteran with a global profile. His career has included hugely successful spells as CFO, CEO and Chairman in both public and private sectors, including private equity. What makes Gareth's experience unique is that he combined those executive roles with a part time career as a leadership trainer, researching psychology, neuroscience and psychotherapy to create leadership development programmes used now by many major global corporations. In the last 15 years Gareth has trained over 5000 managers and served as Executive Coach to over 200 senior execs including FTSE100 CEOs and Fortune 500 VPs. As Founder of Collaborative Equity LLP, “promoting corporate cultures and sustainable business models of shared ownership, shared responsibility and shared rewards", Gareth acts as consultant to many global leaders, specialising in first time CEOs and Start Up founders. ↠ find out more at ceq.com
