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What does authenticity have to do with leadership? If your role involves influencing others or bringing out the best in people, your own authenticity can have a major impact on what you are likely to produce. Authenticity is about credibility and trust. When you are fully in touch with who you are, you are able to bring the full range of your capacity to a situation:  you are more powerful and engaging, more present. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else. 

You can become more authentic through making five practices habit. Each practice will be explored in separate writings.  Delved into so far:  1. Know Who You Are, 2. Reframe Your Life Experiences, 3. Live Your Values, 4. Prioritize Balance.

5. Serve Others

 In line with their own values and sense of self, authentic leaders seek to be of service to others.  In a society of “what’s in it for me?”, authentic leaders recognize that true success is not about their own promotion or about getting subordinates to follow them.  It’s about getting out of themselves so that the collective “we” can rise up together. 

 Before rolling out a new strategic IT plan, LaVerne Council, Corporate Vice President and CIO of Johnson & Johnson, made a point of asking her employees what they needed:  what they were hearing in the organization, what they were learning and how their department could be improved.  Her initiatives created a different kind of connection with people and made the conversations richer.  They also allowed her to not only to devise a strategy absolutely relevant to the needs of J&J, but to also achieve early buy in on the changes to take place. 

 Authentic leaders reap special rewards. Leading authentically brings a deep inner satisfaction that you have empowered others and have thus made the world a better place. This is the challenge and the fulfillment of authentic leadership.

What does authenticity have to do with leadership? If your role involves influencing others or bringing out the best in people, your own authenticity can have a major impact on what you are likely to produce. Authenticity is about credibility and trust. When you are fully in touch with who you are, you are able to bring the full range of your capacity to a situation:  you are more powerful and engaging, more present. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else. 

You can become more authentic through making five practices habit. Each practice will be explored in separate writings.  Delved into so far:  1. Know Who You Are, 2. Reframe Your Life Experiences, 3. Live Your Values.

4. Prioritize Balance

 Leading is high-stress work. The higher you go, the greater your freedom to control your destiny but also the higher the degree of stress. The question is not whether you can avoid stress but how you can control it to maintain your own sense of equilibrium.

 Authentic leaders are constantly aware of the importance of staying grounded. Besides spending time with their families and close friends, authentic leaders get physical exercise, engage in spiritual practices, do community service, and return to the places where they grew up. Balance in the work day can take many forms and doesn’t have to take a lot of time:  10 minutes to walk around the block and get fresh air, five deep breaths and a stretch while the computer is churning, a phone call to a friend. All balance practices are essential to the effectiveness of leaders, enabling them to sustain their authenticity and their true power.

What does authenticity have to do with leadership? If your role involves influencing others or bringing out the best in people, your own authenticity can have a major impact on what you are likely to produce. Authenticity is about credibility and trust. When you are fully in touch with who you are, you are able to bring the full range of your capacity to a situation:  you are more powerful and engaging, more present. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else.

You can become more authentic through making five practices habit.  Each practice will be explored in separate blogs.  Delved into so far:  1. Know Who You Are and 2. Reframe Your Life Experiences.

3. Live Your Values

The values that form the basis for authentic leadership are derived from your beliefs and convictions, but you will not know what your true values are until they are tested under pressure. When your success, your career, or even your life hangs in the balance, you learn what is most important, what you are prepared to sacrifice, and what trade-offs you are willing to make.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is one of the few CEOs who lived up to his aspiration to put customers first. Repeatedly sacrificing short-term profits – and suffering the irritation of Wall Street – he reduced prices and even published information on the Web site discouraging customers from purchasing certain products.

To help leaders stay on course with their values, support teams like spouses, significant others, families, mentors, close friends, colleagues and coaches prove invaluable.  Even the most outwardly confident and competent leaders need guidance and support.

What does authenticity have to do with leadership? If your role involves influencing others or bringing out the best in people, your own authenticity can have a major impact on what you are likely to produce. Authenticity is about credibility and trust. When you are fully in touch with who you are, you are able to bring the full range of your capacity to a situation:  you are more powerful and engaging, more present. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else. 

You can become more authentic through making five practices habit. Each practice will be explored in separate writings.  Delved into so far:  1. Know Who You Are. 

Now:

2.    Reframe Your Life Experiences

 Many leaders draw their motivation from a deep learning resulting from a difficult experience in their lives: the loss of a job, personal illness, the untimely death of a close friend or relative, and feelings of being excluded, discriminated against, and rejected by peers. Rather than seeing themselves as victims, though, authentic leaders use these formative experiences to give meaning to their lives.

 Regardless of how high one regards his policies, it is inarguable to say that Barack Obama  surmounted poverty, racism and an absent father to become the leader of the United States.  More poignantly, he learned to value all that he went through and to champion less fortunate people who seem to less able to overcome difficulties on their own.