Authenticity in Leadership

I have heard the word ‘authenticity’ kicked around in the leadership sphere for quite some time, and it always seemed like a cliche. Then it dawned on me, ‘authenticity’ is about acting in a way that is congruent with how you speak and act.

This seems straightforward and like common sense, but if we break it down, we will see that many of us may not actually be authentic.

Examples of incongruent behaviour:

• If I say to the people on my team, “We must be nice and nurturing to each other for our team’s culture to grow.”, but then I act disgruntled about an idea that doesn’t match my idea.
• If I say, “Health and wellness is important for people.”, but then I order a poutine or double bacon cheeseburger at lunch.
• If I say, “Make sure it’s done on time.”, and then I don’t meet my deadline.
• If I wonder where a team member is at 8:00 am, and then I try and duck out at 3:00 pm without anyone knowing.

These examples might not apply to you. Or, maybe they do hit home and have helped you become aware of how important it is for you, as a leader, to be authentic and stay consistent with your words and actions.

I experienced this behaviour firsthand working in various organizations. My Manager would say something and then act in a different way altogether. To me, that is not being authentic — and I have to admit that I’ve acted this way too.

Getting Real

Once we get straight with ourselves, and identify our core values and the purpose behind what we’re doing everyday, it becomes easier to stay authentic. Finding our purpose and identifying our values helps us to align all of the things that we deem important so we can work towards making them real every day.

At Intrigue, we agreed that our purpose is around leadership and community. We distilled our purpose into:

Empowering Leaders to Strengthening Community.

That is why Intrigue exists.

Our thought is: If we have can have more leaders — more people stepping up to create the change they want to see in the world — the more our communities will be strengthened.

There are too many people waiting for someone else to do things. We need to step up and create the change we want to see ourselves. We need to do that together with others, and we don’t need to wait for it to happen.

If you want to learn some tips on creating your core values so they actually work for you, check out this article on Creating Culture.

If you want to work with a marketing company that values leadership, and community, give us a call at 519-265-4933.

Rob is an action junkie at Intrigue. When he isn’t meeting with clients to create marketing campaigns to grow their business, he is meeting with Chuck Norris to find out how he became the king of action. Rob is part of the Young Professionals Network of Guelph and the Master Planning Steering Committee for the Guelph General Hospital. When Rob isn’t working, he works on finding new ways to catapult himself through the air.