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Authentic leadership - what does it take
Aidan Kearney • May 13, 2020
Here's a lightbulb moment, people don't like being manipulated
Be yourself; everyone else is taken.
So goes the famous saying, often attributed to Oscar Wilde. A very powerful idea and one that’s easy to accomplish, right?
After all, who knows you better than you?
And as a result, being yourself, being authentic should be easy to accomplish too.
But let’s be realistic, there are a couple of challenges to what, on the face of it, may appear very straightforward.
First off, when we talk about knowing ourselves, what do we mean?
It all comes down to values; the personal values that we hold and those that inform our actions.
But unless we’ve spent time understanding and exploring our values and what they mean for how we navigate the world around us, this could be a challenge.
Values act like that compass that helps us decide on a course of action. We can access them when they show up; when we experience the lift of acting in accordance with them or the pain of when we don’t fulfil our values.
Acting in accordance with our values feel good; we feel at ease with our ourselves. Conversely acting against our values can leave us feeling unsettled and uneasy. So, identifying our values and following them through is a central component of maintaining inner equilibrium; helping us to feel good about ourselves.
A second consideration could be that even when we understand our value set; can we always live this out fully?
Sometimes we may have conflicting values; the desire to be a good parent and a diligent co-worker. At times, where work is pressured and busy and family life may be busy too, it could be a challenge to balance these two values. Something may have to give.
So, acting in accordance with our values can be a tricky balancing act and one that takes self-awareness and personal insight.
Third; not everyone is going to share our values. We may be lucky enough to work in team who share common values but the reality of our peculiar human paradox means that while we may hold values of teamwork and commonality; unless we practice and apply skills of insight and self-management, then self-interest and personal advancement could come into play.
The ‘dark triad’ of personality traits, Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy, are aspects we may have encountered; we may even have manifested some of these behaviours ourselves.
While some may contend that these traits can serve a purpose in business and leadership; having hidden agendas, being absorbed by perceptions of one’s own importance and seeking to manipulate others is the antithesis of being an authentic leader and colleague. This has a predictable and inevitable outcome. Trust and bonds are fractured, and teams and relationships fragment as awareness of manipulation comes to light.
Ego may promote an internal narrative that your ‘poker face’ is better than others; that you can run a manipulative game plan that others will not see through; however, sooner or later the marvel that is the human mind may piece together elements of behaviour and recognise what your underlying game plan is. Your tell (the behaviour and demeanour that reveals your true intentions) may well be identified and your bluff may be called.
A simple analogy like this explains the importance of authenticity.
If we approach our leadership and interactions like a poker match; where we seek to bluff, to manipulate and to win against those around us; we may be successful, for a while, but inevitably, our hand is revealed and the trust and collaboration that is so central to high performing teams and to collective success suffers.
Here’s a lightbulb moment; people don’t like being manipulated.
Indeed, research, including: J Volmer, IK Koch, AS Göritz 2016 highlighted particularly detrimental effects of Machiavellianism and Psychopathy on employee well-being and career success, when these behaviours manifest in leadership.
So, the case for behaving with authenticity is clear.
Being authentic in our approach; promoting transparency and basing approaches around self-awareness, self-management, stability and predictability of behaviour; promoting trust based on value led, committed action all feed into scenarios where psycholgical safety thrives. With psychological safety and trusting environments, high performance flourishes.
Acting authentically not only allows us to feel more content in ourselves but allows others to trust; to feel safe; to move towards collaboration and collective efforts.
From here collective problem solving and innovation can blossom. Different skill sets, perspectives and insights can produce novel solutions to seemingly intractable problems and the conditions to achieve success, however we define it, whether personally, emotionally, psychologically or within our teams and businesses, can thrive.
So, here’s my challenge to you as we move into a new year and a new decade; know thyself, explore and understand your values, harness the power of ethical, trust enhancing behaviours and practice authenticity. And then map the outcomes and provide yourself with the evidence of the power of being authentic.
There’s a certain truth in that famous quote from the Dalai Lama. Sleep is good for us, it permits us to rest and recuperate. And, let’s face it, we all know what impact a disrupted night’s sleep has. If we’re had night where our thoughts are racing; where our system just won’t settle and where we’ve found ourselves woken; maybe once; maybe more times, or not able to get to sleep at all for that matter, then we know what effect it has. It’s not just feeling physically tired, but it’s the psychological impact too. Sleep disruption effects our attention, our working memory, our logical reasoning and executive functions. So lack of sleep or sleep disruption is not a good solid foundation for being productive, in whatever activity we want to undertake, be that solving the problem in the business or perhaps the unpaid bill at home; the project that we’re trying to complete or the relationship that might not be going so well. On top of that lack of sleep impacts our mood state, so we’re not only less flexible in our thinking but we may feel more irritable, sad or anxious. Finally lack of sleep also impairs our motor skills, which is part of the reason that driving while tired is such a bad idea. So when the Dalai Lama says sleep is the best, meditation, this starts to make an awful lot of sense even to those who don’t meditate. Getting restful sleep really can help us to be more flexible in our thinking, help us to manage our mood states and have those fine motor skills to hand. So when we think about operating heavy machinery whether that’s literal like driving a big piece of construction plant or more metaphorical like leading a diverse team through uncharted challenges, such as the ones facing business and teams in the wake of the Covid19 health crisis, restful sleep becomes an invaluable part of the induvial and the leader’s strategy. And that’s always easy to accomplish – remember just close your eyes and you sleep, That’s it….right? Well as I’ve talked about above its not that simple, our sleep can be disrupted from inside our own minds. Our restful few hours can be hijacked by thoughts of stress, worry or concern. Our mind isn’t doing anything unnatural here. In fact having these night-time thoughts and fears is perfectly normal and a by-product of how our thinking system operates. A number of studies have demonstrated the link between certain stages of human sleep and heightened amygdala function. The amygdala being the part of the rain closely correlated with emotions of fear and anger and the human stress response. Indeed it has been reported that amygdala activity during REM sleep can be as high as it would be when we are awake. Given that the part of brain which helps us to put things into perspective is not similarly active, does this mean that we have to accept these night-time hijacks and the impact that they’ll have on our thinking and mood states? You’ll be glad to hear that this doesn’t have to be case. We can build our skills to support our sleep cycle, just like we would with any other skill we develop. So here’s 5 tips to help you get better sleep Let’s start with simple behavioural aspects: • First think about temperature. We all know what it is like having the room too hot or too cold. How many of us have stuck our leg out the side of the covers only to wake with our toes like icicles later in the night, so find the right temperature • Get the room dark enough, that way we’ll limit the potential for our internal sleep hormones to pushed off balance • And linked to that consider limiting your device use close to bedtime. Our beloved devices emit a wavelength of light in the blue part of the light spectrum. This mimics sunlight and can interfere with melatonin (our sleep hormone) secretion. The next tip I have for you is to deal with anything occupying your mind. Think about it would the other party in the contract really want you to email them at 3am – probably not, so if there is something occupying your mind, get a notepad and write those thought down, including any worries or concerns you have around it. Then take a few minutes and reflect on what you’ve just written down. Getting those thoughts out of your head can have a cathartic impact on how we’re feeling and we can then use what we’ve written to identify the first thing we’ll do the following day (after our sleep ) to move the ,matter forward. Remember you don’t have to solve the entire issue in one fell swoop, just identify the first step you’ll take and then agree with yourself that you’ll activate this once you’ve slept. The final tip is a specific behavioural technique harnessing controlled breathing and progressive muscle relaxation that I use with clients. This can have the impact of de-escalating internal responses and calming the system down. It takes some time to run though, so we don’t have time for that here, but if you’d like to know more, then visit my website and check out the contact me section Using this approaches can help us to build skills around sleep, harnessing the restful and recuperative power. We’ll enhance our capability to think flexibly around the issues we’re faced with and be in a better position to deploy helpful and less elevated mood states – so in a sense, just like the Dalai Lama sleep may act like a form of meditation and our approach to what we face may be closer to where we’d like it to be. To hear a bit more why not listen to the podcast - link.chtbl.com/FstFwdTM - the fabulous Trish Keating of Tech Manchester recently recorded with me on the importance of sleep.
I find it fascinating when I hear people use very binary language; statements which are absolute in nature. Using words like always and never in our statements create an expectation of certainty. "We always do things a certain way" "We never speak to each other like that" These statements are fine in isolation but unfortunately they rely on our behaviour to carry them through. Human behaviour is dynamic and fluid and; therefore, subject to change based on how we are feeling ourselves; how we are feeling in given setting or subject to change based on circumstances which may influence our actions and reactions. In an organisational context we might think that we always do things in a certain way; but realistically matters outside of our control such as changes in finances or technology can change our approach, and equally so too might the fluctuations of our own internal emotional and psychological mindset. Some of the absolute statements I have heard over the years include things like: We don't do ego here; I've never read a book, and perhaps the most outlandish: I never make mistakes When I've heard these types of statements, the inquiring part of my thinking kicks into gear and I often ask myself why would someone make such a black and white statement; what meaning sits behind being so completely 100% about something. When I hear we don't do ego here, I wonder; has that person somehow managed to remove parts of their physical brain and psychological mind that relate to internal presentations of how we view the self and how we would outwardly wish to appear to others. Or is there perhaps another reason crystalised by Shakespeare's Hamlet; that this person " doth protest too much, methinks" When I hear "I've never read a book", my immediate thought is: Never? Really? Are you sure? Not even in school? And when I hear as I have done in more than one setting, that "I don't make mistakes", my mind similarly questions why such a statement would be made. Each one of us makes mistakes; whether those mistakes may be in our personal relationships, financial transactions, technically or professionally or even making predcitions about what we think will happen. Making mistakes is absolutely normal and a key part of our learning allows us to review what happened previously and to adapt our behaviour according to what didn't work out for us. I don't think I'm alone is my ears pricking up whenever I hear such absolute statements; am I? In fact our brain's in built threat detection system, with it's watchfulness, can allow us to pick up on the context of language and statements and raise our level of alertness when such absolute statements are made. We don't do ego here - Well let's wait and see about that. Indeed all of the above statements set immediate alarm bells ringing in the limbic regions of my brain as my experience and learning connect all of these statements with the subject of the first statement - Ego. As I work with client organisations, I often find that using language and examples they might be familiar with can help to illustrate points. So let's try this with the utterance of absolute statements. We all know the story of the little wooden doll who becomes a real life boy and who's nose grows every time he tells a fib. Think about it like this. Using this analogy the little wooden doll boy is the absolute statement. The behaviour which runs contrary to the absolute statement is the magic which makes the nose grow and our own understanding of language in context and what absolute statements mean, is our ability to see and understand what the nose growing actually means. So absolute statements like the ones above can awaken our inbuilt threat detection system (our limbic lobe; our amygdala) and prime our system to be on guard. We can perceive the binary nature of the statement and can be primed by experience and learning to question why the statement was made and what lies behind it. How productive might all of this be when we want to build trust and collaboration with others? My suggestion is that having created an expectation of absolute outcomes, particularly if those outcomes are as preposterous and contrary to the norms of human behaviour as the ones I've outlined above, this can be enormously counter-productive. What we're really taking about here is trust. Trust is after all the thing that helps to reduce barriers, create connections and defuse any potential psychological defensiveness. But trust is a fragile commodity and has a definite neuro-chemical and psychological aspect. If we don't recognise and manage this effectively, the result can be increased psychological defensiveness; diminished trust, silo functioning and reduced team productivity. You might be thinking that all of this is very interesting from a personal perspective, but what has it got to do with the world of work and organisations. Well the giveaway was the centrality of trust, with what it means in terms of performance within teams. This is why an understanding of what the team and corporate values we espouse actually mean, is so vital. If this is not properly articulated, explored and agreed; then it can be easy for the words (the values) and the pictures (the behaviours) not to match. And our brains are as capable of identifying and honing in on such inconsistency as they are of picking up the inflexible and absolute nature of statements we hear. In an organisational setting, values may not be such rigid, absolute, binary statements but rather principles that we attempt to hold ourselves too; accepting, as is normal, that we may make mistakes but having the self awareness to understand when this has happened and holding ourselves and each accountable to these standards, with all that this means for management of internal drivers of behaviour, survival responses and unsurprisingly managing ego. So it's a really simple, easy and straightforward task then. Actually it's not it's a difficult and challenging skill that we need to deploy on an ongoing basis, and one key step to building and deploying this skill is checking in our absolute thoughts, and our ego, at the door.