Discovering Your Authentic Leadership

I'm in my home town, northeast of Toronto. This is where I spent the first 19 years of my life. We visited with my parents yesterday. Today we're with my in-laws.

I had a good run this morning. I missed two workouts earlier this week. Just very busy and, unfortunately, not sleeping well this week either. Lots on my mind! So, missed workouts combined with a big Easter meal yesterday, and another today, provided plenty of motivation for a lengthy run today!

I've just finished the February Harvard Business Review. (Yes, behind on my reading again!) "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership" by George, Sims, McLean and Mayer was found on page 129.

As the paper title suggests, the focus was on the benefits, and indeed the need, for leaders to be their authentic selves, rather than trying to emulate someone else. The authors are thankful that over 1000 leadership studies have failed to provide a synthesized profile or set of character traits for a successful leader. Had such a profile been developed, the authors posit that aspiring leaders would fall into the emulation trap, and authenticity would wane.

From the paper:

1) Learn from your life story - Not from your life events, but from your narrative, how you interpret and relate said events. This is telling.

2) Know your authentic self - "Self awareness" was noted as the most important capability for leaders to develop by the Stanford Graduate School of Business's Advisory Council.

3) Practice your values and principles - And you won't know your true values, convictions and beliefs until their tested in highly stressful situations.

4) Balance your extrinsic and intrinsic motivations - We all want to believe that we're motivated and driven primarily from within, but human nature suggests that we all derive much satisfaction from external recognition. This is natural. Balance is critical.

5) Build your support team - We all need strong feedback systems, people to pick us up, people to tell us like it is, and people with whom we can be completely open and vulnerable.

6) Integrating your life by staying grounded - Can you be the same person in your personal life, professional life, with close family, with friends, with shareholders and employees?

7) Empowering people to lead - Authentic leaders realize that leadership is not about their personal success, but rather it's about the success of many empowered leaders throughout the organization.

I highly recommend this article to all aspiring leaders. Of course, I'm biased. I've long believed that authenticity, and thus self awareness as a pre-requisite, are critical to effective leadership.