CHAPTER 4

FIRST, KEEP IT REAL

One of the most common pieces of early career advice most people receive is to not take work personally. It’s as if we’re all supposed to strap on bulletproof vests, so that when we have setbacks, when we mess up or get negative feedback, we can feel the impact but not be affected. We’re to adopt a posture somewhere between battle-tested stoicism and generalized detachment.

As nearly all of us are indoctrinated into the working world this way, it causes a struggle when we meet with a popular imperative for leadership: to be authentic. Um, aren’t these ideas in conflict? How can I be fully myself when I’m not supposed to let them see me sweat? How do I balance the messages I’m tasked to deliver with what I actually feel about them? Is it possible to be too authentic at work?

The irony is that work is extremely personal, no matter how we try to manage it. Lots of us spend more time working than just about anything else. We put our heart into our jobs, take personal risks to advance, and put our skills and personalities on the line every day. Work is intensely personal. That’s an important element that shouldn’t get lost—and I would argue, should even be amplified. We can’t inspire without it.

We’re moving into the next section of the book, which covers how to be more personal in our communications. In this chapter, we’re diving into authenticity, a concept we hear about in leadership circles but aren’t always sure what to do about. Authenticity is the epitome of being personal because we’re being our true selves. When we’re having Inspire Path conversations, authenticity plays a critical role in connection. Your listener looks to you first to see how much you care, and this is what shapes how much he will care. He wants to see that you’ve bought in before he considers the idea. Your listener might not match your level of commitment, but he won’t have any if you don’t appear to have it. We all have our BS detectors tuned up, especially when the stakes are high. If you want to move behavior or shape thinking, you need to get personal and stay personal. We’re not inspired by fakes, frauds, blowhards, blusterers, or even by those who play it too close to the vest. We need to see the real deal.

THE AGE OF AUTHENTICITY

In 2003, former CEO of Medtronic and Harvard management professor Bill George published Authentic Leadership, which popularized the theory that the best leaders bring their full selves to the task. George explains authentic leadership this way:

Authentic leaders use their natural abilities, but they also recognize their shortcomings, and work hard to overcome them. They lead with purpose, meaning, and values. They build enduring relationships with people. Others follow them because they know where they stand. They are consistent and self-disciplined. When their principles are tested, they refuse to compromise. Authentic leaders are dedicated to developing themselves because they know that becoming a leader takes a lifetime of work.¹

Throughout the 2000s, there’s been a steady drumbeat of research and literature about how authentic leadership produces better outcomes for teams and companies, and how to define and explain what authentic leaders actually do.² There’s a sincere desire to prove that being an engaged and inspirational leader actually does lead to good results, and to help leaders learn what they can do differently.

While researchers research, popular culture has wholeheartedly embraced the idea of authentic leadership. People who are real, speak the truth, and talk from the heart are admired. They may display a variety of personality styles, but they come from a place that’s real and unique to them. Consider the popularity of figures like Oprah, Pope Francis, Malala Yousafzai, Warren Buffett, or Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. In fact, people who are seen as authentic leaders dominate Gallup’s annual poll of the most admired men and women.³ Another example of this is the global phenomenon of TED Talks, where experts combine their research with very personal stories. Truth and sincerity are on full display.

It’s also worth noting that, more than any other demographic, millennials are even more bought into the model of authentic leadership. This age group, who comprise the majority of the workforce and are now rising to management positions, grew up with a different relationship to authority than their Baby Boomer parents, and expect flatter, less directive relationships between leaders and teams.⁴

The expectations for being authentic appear to be going up, not down. Throw in the variety of ways that leaders are seen through their online presence and through social media, and you have intimate touchpoints that just didn’t even exist twenty years ago when Gen Xers were entering the workforce. But let’s go back to where we started: Even though we buy into the promise of authenticity in the workforce, how to put more of it out there for ourselves is not so cut and dried.

THE MAGIC BALANCING ACT

Authenticity is hard because no one is either always authentic or always inauthentic. Our behavior exists on a continuum; we decide from moment to moment what to share and what to show. We also can and do learn how to adjust our authenticity to find the style that works for us at particular points in time. We grow and we change. Herminia Ibarra, professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD business school and author of Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader explains that there can be a tension between the comfort in our total authenticity and the bravery to try new behaviors on for size. “That takes courage,” she writes, “because learning, by definition, starts with unnatural and often superficial behaviors that can make us feel calculating instead of genuine and spontaneous. But the only way to avoid being pigeonholed and ultimately become better leaders is to do the things that a rigidly authentic sense of self would keep us from doing.”⁵

She goes on to explain that as we build confidence in new behaviors, it becomes easier to incorporate them as our own, and therefore, part of our authentic selves. She calls it being “adaptively authentic.”⁶ I believe wholeheartedly in this idea, which plays out in coaching all the time. We adapt to new learning and decide what behaviors to begin and which to shed. We absorb new behaviors into our own repertoire.

Authenticity truly is a balancing act. I spent the earliest part of my career working as a political consultant getting federal candidates elected to office. It was many years ago, but the experience of trying to figure out how to get voters to connect to a candidate was invaluable. It’s a tough environment where skepticism and mistrust are high, and time is of the essence. If you can master communications strategy in political campaigns, anything else seems easy by comparison.

In the role of helping candidates communicate, I learned a pivotal lesson that has influenced my work since: People are drawn to those who blend competency with vulnerability. We knew, and had poll numbers to prove it, that when we could show voters that a candidate had both ability and authenticity then voters would respond positively. We spent countless hours scouring candidate backgrounds for stories that showed their relatability and humanity. All campaigns do this, which is why you know the candidates’ back-stories.

This lesson is as true in the corporate and public relations spheres as it is in politics. The most compelling leaders blend strength with struggle, power with vulnerability, and steely resolve with a learning approach.

Even though I learned this lesson through experience, there’s solid research to back it up. We’ve known about the pratfall effect since the 1960s. According to this concept, people who are seen as competent become more likeable if they show a personal weakness.⁷ The pratfall effect has been repeatedly studied through the lens of communications, negotiations, body language, and interpersonal relationships.⁸

So there’s a balancing act to have the right amount of authenticity—which can seem like the opposite of being authentic. It’s a push and pull. People want to be authentic, but they also need to be strong. It’s a tension that’s in the background, and can cause us to feel that we’ll never get it right.

DOES AUTHENTICITY SCALE?

One of the larger challenges of authentic leadership is how to scale it. You can be an empathetic, funny, kind, inspiring person with your close friends, but that may not translate when you’re running a team of a hundred or a company of ten thousand. How do you communicate your authentic self to people who don’t even know you? It’s a common issue that people face as their audience gets larger and less familiar.

This was the case for one of my clients, whom I’ll call Gabe. Gabe had been with his company for decades, working primarily in a satellite office. Known for accomplishing the impossible, he had a loyal, close-knit following of team members and customers who sang his praises. Gabe had a sharp, sarcastic wit and a quick retort for everything. His mind worked fast, he talked faster, and he approached each day as a new challenge to tackle. His team had grown up with him, and had long ago found the person of integrity and caring that existed underneath his curt and efficient manner.

A few years ago, Gabe’s company went through a major reorganization. The new executive team was looking for people who could shake up the status quo, and Gabe fit the bill. He relocated to the headquarters where he was given a significant role with hundreds of direct reports. After accomplishing a lot in a short amount of time, he was given even more responsibility and direct reports. And that’s when the problems started.

Gabe’s peers began to complain that he was leaving them out of decisions, and not operating as a team player. When he would give a quick email response or delegate a task, he was accused of being dismissive. The new people on Gabe’s team began aligning into factions—those who were with him and those who wanted him gone. The more the CEO showered praise on Gabe, the worse the sniping got. He was accused of being out for himself and untrustworthy. Since this had never happened in Gabe’s entire career, he was floored. He tried to reach out to people but found every action on his part was interpreted negatively. Why couldn’t people see his true intentions? How could the strategy of being himself—which had worked beautifully up until now—backfire? In this new position, he felt that people didn’t know him at all.

Gabe had a scaling problem. With his long-term colleagues, his authentic self was appreciated and understood. But when he moved into an unfamiliar environment, people picked up dismissive cues that were in direct conflict with Gabe’s intention of inclusion. He was right: People didn’t know him. And because they believed they had him figured out, they didn’t care to correct the impression.

One famous example of this inability to scale one’s personality is Al Gore. When Gore ran for president in 2000, he was routinely mocked for being wooden, boring, and robotic. He was characterized as a humorless talking head. A Pew Research poll found the number one adjective associated with Gore was “boring.” In another poll by CNN, 65 percent of respondents said that he was not inspiring.⁹ For those in political circles, this was confounding. He had a reputation for being witty, personable, and deeply passionate about causes. People who worked with him talked about his sense of humor. In the Senate, he was seen as a good guy who was well-liked by colleagues. How did all of that get lost?

We all know the story. Gore lost the election, and after much soul searching, set out to advance his cause of fighting climate change, eventually starring in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Almost overnight, Gore went from being a stiff policy wonk to one of the most inspiring figures in the sustainability movement. Winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, a Grammy, and an Oscar, Gore found himself mobbed at film festivals and featured at events with rock stars.¹⁰ All of a sudden, people seemed to “get” Al Gore and see him for who he really was. Love him or hate him, no one was calling him a robot anymore.

There were several reasons for Gore’s transformation. Certainly one is that the country became open to the issue of global warming. But beyond that, Gore’s approach didn’t change all that much. What did change was his ability to project authenticity. We saw him, in talk after talk, put his heart on the line. We could see the person behind the slides and the policy talk—and that’s what people gravitated toward. Today, he’s still traveling the globe as a transformational leader in the sustainability movement.

So that’s Al Gore. But what about my client Gabe? The situation was certainly on a smaller scale, but the core issue was the same. He needed to get clearer around his own values, and then to ensure that they were being translated through his words and his actions. This meant working on his authenticity both internalized and externalized. It’s not enough to have one or the other. We may have the best intentions, but because perception becomes reality we must communicate those intentions. On the other hand, we can also say the right words, but if they don’t touch upon our core beliefs, then the dialogue is hollow.

To bring that kind of authenticity, Gabe incorporated many of the ideas that follow in the upcoming “concept in action” section. Gabe’s situation is one example of communicating authentically. Sometimes, like with Gabe, it’s about communicating authentically to a team or to corporate leadership. Other times it’s about how to convey authenticity and make a personal connection to an audience in a public speaking environment. Or it could be about reaching someone individually. These are all conversations that count. Authentically connecting matters tremendously.

AUTHENTICITY FROM THE INSIDE OUT

As we discussed, communicating authentically can be tricky. It’s not simply flipping on a switch, but engaging in a continuum of behaviors. It’s helpful to approach this as a two-step process: authenticity internalized and authenticity externalized. I suggest that you start with the internal piece and then move into how to translate that to the external. This model offers a way to put the concept of leading with more authenticity into practice.

Figure 4.1: Authenticity Infographic

AUTHENTICITY INTERNALIZED

It may sound redundant or even counterproductive to discuss how to be more internally authentic, but stay with me. Typically, we allow the busyness of our days and the urgency of our tasks to obscure our actual, deep-down beliefs and feelings. When we are attempting to make a true connection with someone else, we first should send out a beaming, accurate light that allows another to see our intentions and motivations clearly. When we aren’t clear about what we stand for and where we’re coming from, then we’re opening up the conversation to miscommunication and misinterpretation. By getting our values clear, embracing our story, and owning our message, we can come across with heightened clarity.

KNOW YOUR VALUES AND DETERMINE YOUR BRAND

One of the places I start with clients is to provide a simple process for them to understand their personal presence brands. I can’t help someone show up with clarity if I don’t first understand what he or she is trying to convey. I can’t tell people what values to project—only they can do that. Most leaders don’t do this at all, and if they do, it’s not in actionable form.

The great news is that this process—which is the cornerstone to consistent authenticity and presence—can take less than an hour. Here’s all you need to do:

1.List your 10 most cherished values. How do you want others to view you? What do you want your legacy to be? What makes you proud of yourself?

2.Narrow that list down to your top five values that are critical to your self-image. These five are core to who you are, and it would really sting if someone said that you didn’t embody these values.

3.Come up with a key phrase or image that evokes that list of five values. This can be a person you admire, a song lyric, a place, a quote, an acronym—anything you want. The most important thing is that it’s something that you can remember and keep at the top of your mind. This is your brand; it informs how you want to be and be seen.¹¹

By going through this short process, you are underscoring what’s most important to you and stripping away what’s less important. None of us can be all things to all people. We admire people who are comfortable in their own skins—who know who they are. By narrowing those values down to a brand, you are ensuring that you project light that others can see. This is something you can use to make decisions, and even to weave into your discussions with other people.

Your personal presence brand is your anchor. It’s a reminder in times of stress, distraction, tedium, or frustration what you want to show up to be and stand for. Most important, it’s succinct and memorable enough to be called to mind whenever and wherever you need it.

For example, my top five values are Trustworthy, Generous, Creative, Inspiring, and Wholehearted. My brand is: “Open Mind, Brave Heart.” It informs how I want to be in the world, as a parent and family member, in my work as a coach, and in my community. Also, it’s important to note that these values are aspirational—how I want to be rather than how I am 100 percent of the time. Sure, I miss the mark sometimes, as my family would readily point out! But my brand keeps me in check and anchors me to what’s important in times of stress or indecision. These important values serve as a compass for my behavior and how I communicate with others. When I’m in front of a room full of strangers or being tested with a tough client situation, I can take a moment, call my brand to mind and orient myself in the direction of my own values. Believe me, I use it.

If you’d like to do this on your own, follow those three steps. (For a little support, you can download a free tool at thehedgescompany.com.)

EMBRACE YOUR LEADERSHIP STORY

In Chapter 3, I discussed the downside of what happens when we buy into our own stories. Now I’m going to expand that concept, because there is a time when embracing our stories does help us to connect us with others. I call this your leadership story. It’s a way of bringing your life experiences together in a cogent narrative. Your leadership story reveals enough of yourself so that others can get to know you and see what your values are.

Your leadership story doesn’t have to be one specific story. Usually it’s more of a compilation with an overall theme. Imagine this as a series of short stories in a volume named “Trust” or “Risk-Taking.” Earlier, when I wrote about political candidates connecting with voters, this is what they’re doing—revealing their back stories so that voters can understand them on a deeper level.

You see other well-respected leaders doing this with great impact. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, often talks about his early years growing up poor in public housing, and the impact that playing sports at the Boys and Girls Club had on him. This type of community support helped him to excel at sports and eventually attend college on an athletic scholarship. Starbucks, with its strong commitment to supporting local communities and causes, was among the first U.S. retailers to provide health insurance even to part-time workers. Schultz’s story enables people to understand him as something more than another successful billionaire. It reveals his brand.

For a variety of reasons, leaders might not share their brand stories. Maybe they’re embarrassed, or they feel it represents them in a bad light. They may believe that no one really cares. Remember that you get to write the narrative. Growing up poor could be something to hide, or like Shultz, something that creates a strong work ethic and sense of corporate responsibility. For now, I encourage you to reflect and embrace what has shaped your thinking and behavior to this point. We’ll come back in a bit to discuss how to externalize it. (See Chapter 8 for how to structure a strong story).

OWN THE MESSAGE

A frequent frustration is how to convey and inspire with a message when it isn’t your idea, and when you might not even agree with it. For example, you’re a middle manager who has to rally your team around a new corporate vision that was handed down to you. If you’ve been in this situation, you know all too well how difficult it can be to find your game face.

There’s always the option to undermine the message by telling others that it’s “not what I would have done, but here you go.” This kind of passive-aggressive, sabotaging behavior happens in companies every day. It kills change initiatives slowly but definitively. We’re about inspiring here, and that’s communicating to move in a positive direction.

At my firm, we call this “leadership maturity.” It’s the idea that when you take the job, you assume ownership over the messages and work product. It’s your responsibility to dig into the message and determine how to make it your own. This may mean emphasizing the parts you do agree with, putting your own spin on it, showing the bright side of the change, or devising the way forward. It’s finding the nugget inside of any message that aligns with your brand and goals. (If you can’t do this with any degree of authenticity, you’re probably in the wrong place.)

Most important, it’s not parroting talking points, but revealing your values through them. Others can only believe what they see that you believe. Whether you are conveying a product, an idea, or a mindset change, others need to see that it’s clear to you.

AUTHENTICITY EXTERNALIZED

So now that we have some awareness around how to get clearer about the internal piece, it’s time to express yourself in a way that allows others to see your good intentions. It can be maddeningly frustrating if, as was the case with Gabe, others misread your motives. It’s even worse when they assume the negative.

While it’s true that you can never please everyone, and you shouldn’t expect to, it’s to your advantage in Inspire Path conversations to present yourself honestly and authentically. Generally, when we do that, others reply in kind. Wharton professor Adam Grant’s book Give and Take makes a compelling argument, backed by considerable research, that people tend to match each other’s behaviors. When someone reveals something personal to us, we seek to return that favor.¹² We both learn more and try to understand each other’s perspectives, and the relationship is enhanced. (We’re also more likely to reach a mutually satisfactory outcome in negotiations.)

EXPLICIT TRANSPARENCY

We have an interesting relationship with transparency. For starters, we fear it. We spend a good deal of psychic effort trying to show our best selves.

Yet, we also believe that we, personally, are straightforward and readable most of the time. Recall what psychologists term the transparency illusion. We think that we’re easy to read, but we’re not. While strong emotions such as anger are readily detectable, subtle emotions are not.¹³ Most of the time our emotions are subtle and controlled, and therefore hard to get across with accuracy. This is why you can have a two-hour conversation with someone and walk away with entirely different opinions of how the meeting went.

To overcome this, we need to be explicitly transparent. This means not leaving it to chance, but putting our intention out there. One of the easiest ways to do this is by stating it up front, as discussed in Chapter 2. A simple, “here’s my intention for this conversation” can change the direction entirely. Another way to be more transparent is to expose your thinking. With Inspire Path conversations, this may mean revealing the capitulations, concerns, and motives that led you to this place. When we practice explicit transparency, we never assume that others get where we’re coming from. We tell them.

GENUINE LANGUAGE

How we speak also communicates our authenticity. We know that when someone uses stiff corporate-speak we’re not going to connect. When we want to externalize our authenticity, we should sound like we do in any other part of our lives—using direct plain-speak that conveys our thoughts efficiently. While it’s good to be thoughtful and to consider how we’ll communicate, once we open our mouths, it’s less about the exact wording than it is about the sentiment behind those words. Are we seen as genuine or as trying to impress? Are we more concerned with the connection we make or with the image we project?

Another way that we can use language in a genuine way is to be brave enough to admit when we don’t know something. Saying “I don’t know” reveals that we’re fallible and increases trust in us. Remember the pratfall effect: when we expose a weakness then our likeability goes up. It’s the same idea here. Think of how much effort goes into trying to have every answer, from the time you’re in school and want to please the teacher to last week when you wanted to please your boss. Being brave enough to be honest about what we do and do not know can be a true connection point.

VULNERABILITY EXPRESSED

I’ve touched upon vulnerability in this chapter quite a bit because authenticity requires a core of vulnerability. We know that no one is perfect or without weakness, so we feel safest and most honest when we see vulnerability expressed by others. We see it in ourselves all too well and are relieved to see it in others. This is not to say you should be a puddle of mush, or bring your darkest secrets to work, but reveal yourself to be a real person who has strengths and challenges like everyone else.

So how do you express the kind of vulnerability that makes those connections? First, make sure that you know and share your leadership story. Whenever possible, weave those vignettes into your conversations so the other party can better get you on a basic human level.

Second, strive to be real. Do not try to convey an overly positive version of yourself. One of my favorite quotes around this is from the movie Almost Famous. In the scene, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a grizzled journalist who is helping a young protégé figure out the ways of the world. Hoffman’s character encourages him not to be ashamed of being real by telling him that the only real exchanges in the world come when we’re being uncool. Indeed, you could argue that connection doesn’t really start until we know we’re dealing with the real person across the table.

Finally, another way that we can express vulnerability is to ask for advice. You can ask anyone, up or down the hierarchy, in a position of power or not. Seeking advice is a powerful method of connecting. Research at Northwestern has shown that when we ask another person for advice we enhance the relationship on multiple levels.¹⁴ We show competence without sacrificing warmth. We help others to take our perspective, which creates more mutually desirable outcomes. And we inspire increased commitment. There is one catch: The advice has to be sincerely sought. No asking just for the sake of asking.

Let that settle in. We generate trust and competence just by asking for another person’s advice. Yet, how often do we try to avoid asking in order to figure something out on our own? When we ask for advice we are gaining buy-in and commitment for our ideas—not by telling, but by asking.

AUTHENTICITY GIVEN INVITES AUTHENTICITY RECEIVED

In conversations that matter, all parties need to open up. This is an inherent risk, but if we don’t manage this, the communication is nothing more than ricocheting ideas off each other. Nothing actually gets through.

As the leader, authenticity begins with you. It has to be modeled. It’s not enough to feel like you’re authentic; you also must actively show it. Gabe, from earlier in this chapter, used the various aspects of this framework to allow others to better understand his intentions, so they could begin to feel secure with his leadership. He didn’t understand why he’d need to do this at first. After all, this had never been a problem and he knew what he was trying to get across. But his authenticity didn’t scale. It was only through first getting clear about his own values and leadership story, and then consciously and purposefully choosing to be transparent in interpersonal as well as in group interactions that he was able to change that impression. He was successful, though it took the good part of a year of consistently working on relationships throughout the company. As our work wrapped, he was being groomed for a position on the executive team.

We can role model authenticity on even the largest scales. Indra Nooyi, the CEO of PepsiCo, is one of the most highly regarded leaders in the Fortune 500. Named the fifteenth most powerful woman in the world by Forbes, she took the helm of the company in 2006, and began a global transformation effort to change the business structure and culture.¹⁵ Nooyi is generous with her leadership story. A deep believer in an authentic approach, she speaks publicly about the secret to her success being a culture where people could be “wholehearted” at work and bring the entirety of themselves to their jobs every day.¹⁶

Perhaps the best that any of us can wish for is not to be authentic but to live authentically—to choose to show up as our true selves and connect on a real level as a default posture. Bill George uses a metaphor for authenticity that’s apt. He says to “think of your life as a house, with a bedroom for your personal life, a study for your professional life, a family room for your family, and a living room to share with friends. Can you knock down the walls between these rooms and be the same person in each of them?”¹⁷

That’s the person we’re most inspired by.