A few days ago as I walked through my local supermarket I caught a glimpse of an interview quote, inviting the reader to buy a magazine in order to learn more.  The quote was something along the lines of “I won’t cut my hair, because it’s who I am”.  It could equally have said “I won’t change my clothes/ adapt my accent/ take the ear-ring out of my nose…” and many more things besides.  I found myself thinking “No, these things are not who you are.  They’re ways you choose to express yourself”.  Several days after I walked past this magazine, I realised that the headline was pointing me to an important truth for those of us in leadership positions:  we can be outstanding leaders AND be ourselves.  At the same time, we need to be clear on who we really are.

Why is this important?  At one level it’s about fashion in the world of leadership:  it’s so fashionable to be “authentic”.  If you pop the words “authentic leadership” into your search engine you’ll find all sorts of scholarly articles and theory.  A number of authors have written books on the subject.  It’s in vogue on the discussion groups on LinkedIn.  At another level, authentic leadership draws our attention because the challenge of being an outstanding leader whilst also being true to ourselves is one that exercises people in leadership roles – many people at some point in their leadership career find themselves grappling with what appears, on the surface, to be an irreconcilable dichotomy.

Take Jurgen, for example.  Promoted at a young age into a senior leadership role, Jurgen looked around him and formed a view of what it meant to be a leader in his organisation.  He started to adopt the behaviours of his peers, especially those he admired.  In his tough-talking, fast-paced organisation he started to adjust his style to make sure his staff were in no doubt what was expected of them and what the consequences would be if they didn’t deliver the results expected of them.  He reduced his focus on people and increased his emphasis on results, identifying key projects, making plans for each project, allocating work amongst members of his team and tracking results.

Jurgen thought he was doing the right thing but he quickly discovered it wasn’t working.  It wasn’t working because his colleagues – previously his peers and now members of his team – seemed to be offering less cooperation than before so that achieving results was getting more and more difficult.  He didn’t know it but it wasn’t working in the eyes of those who had recruited him either, who expected he would bring a softer approach than other members of the senior management team, in line with their aspirations for a less “macho” and more emotionally intelligent leadership style.  Above all, it wasn’t working for Jurgen because it felt deeply uncomfortable – it just “wasn’t him”.  Jurgen felt like an imposter in the role, because he didn’t feel comfortable doing it the way others were doing it and he thought this was the way it needed to be done.

Jurgen took the initiative to organise a coach, who helped him to understand that he could be himself and still be an outstanding leader.  He developed a statement of values in which authenticity was key.  He dropped the persona he had adopted when he first stepped into his role in favour of an approach that was more natural to him.  It seemed like he was on track.  At the same time, when I met Jurgen a few months later, I noticed that I had a suspicion about some of Jurgen’s behaviours – it seemed possible to me that some of the behaviours he identified with as an expression of his authentic self dated back to a time in his early life and had not been examined since.  He thought he was the person who was always kind to people and he was – but he didn’t know why or even what kindness meant to him.  In moving away from the leadership persona he had adopted to a more “authentic” way of being, Jurgen had stepped into a set of unconscious behaviours which, in turn, were not always effective or even truly him.

Meeting Jurgen prompted me to identify and share some of the things I have seen leaders do who have learnt to be highly effective whilst also remaining true to themselves.  Here are just a few of them along with a few words about how Jurgen has applied them:

First, set your intentions

Jurgen set an intention to be authentic in his role as a leader and, following our conversation, added his intention to continue to develop as an outstanding leader.  This set up what you might call an inner dialogue as he started to explore what it meant to be both.

This was coupled with being clear about his intentions in specific situations, for example when he had to address a performance shortfall in a member of his team.  He sensed that being an outstanding leader in this situation meant addressing the issue and bringing it to a resolution – to an improvement in performance or to the recognition that his team member wasn’t in the right job.  At the same time, he also wanted to embody his core value of kindness and compassion.  He set the intention to explore how he could address the issue with kindness and compassion whilst still bringing it to a clear resolution.

Then, discern between your intentions and the means by which you achieve them

Jurgen realised that in attempting to be kind to his team member, he had been holding back on addressing the issue at all.  He’d let his team member flounder and he’d stood back and watched as colleagues became increasingly frustrated at the levels of performance they witnessed.  As the annual appraisals season approached, Jurgen knew he would be basing his year-end performance rating on behaviours he witnessed but not discussed with his team member.  The more he looked at his approach, the more he realised that it was anything but kind, even though kindness was at the heart of his intentions.

Once he had examined the effects of his existing approach, Jurgen was in a better position to explore what different approach he might take.  At this point, it made sense to him to ask more experienced colleagues how they handled this kind of issue.  He discovered that those he most admired were most likely to address the issue head on.  He also discovered that they were the most skilful in the way they framed the issue.  This gave him the basis for a different approach which was still consistent with his core value of kindness.

Ask yourself, “is this really me?”

Jurgen went one step further, and took time to examine why kindness was so important to him.  In doing so, he became aware of the extent to which he’d taken on a value of his mother’s – sometimes even at his own expense.  Examining his value in this way helped him to decide both to keep this value and to re-frame it.  He decided he needed to include kindness towards himself as an essential part of this value.  He likened it to the oxygen mask in the plane – realising he had to put on his own oxygen mask before helping others.

Jurgen started to develop the habit of examining his beliefs about himself and found that, sometimes, the outcomes surprised him.  He discovered some beliefs he decided to let go, realising he had thought they were his own and finding they were not.  As a result and, over time, he developed a stronger and deeper understanding of himself and greater confidence and self belief.  It seemed paradoxical to him at first and still, alongside this greater sense of self, he found he was less attached to doing things in particular ways – he became more flexible in his approach.  And as he became more flexible in his approach, consciously adapting his behaviour to meet the needs of the situation as well as thinking about what it meant to be authentic, he found his effectiveness as a leader improved.

How about you?  To what extent is it an aspiration you hold:  to be both authentic and effective in your role as a leader?  And how consciously do you explore what it means to be you?  How open are you to new insights about yourself – how conscious are you?  Please share what comes up for you in the comments.