Are You An Authentic Leader?
A recently coined but widely accepted term, “Authentic Leadership” is a modern and more inclusive approach to leadership. This works on the principles that a leader can prove their legitimacy by nurturing sincere relationships with their direct and indirect reports and paying due respect to their input. An authentic leader encourages their subordinates to be more open; they appreciate their support in the success of the organization. Their leadership style promotes both individual and team performance.
Authentic leadership is built on the premise that leaders should strive to be transparent, or willing to show as much of their feelings as they can, without stepping over boundaries. Handled skillfully, authenticity can help build trust and bring together work groups to pursue common goals, ultimately increasing job satisfaction and productivity. But where do the boundaries lie that separate authenticity and TMI, or too much information? Walking this line requires skillful maneuvering around what topics to talk about, as well as when, why and how to have those conversations.
Why Is Authentic Leadership Important?
Organisations who have an authentic leadership style bring their whole selves to their jobs and participate fully and honestly in the workplace. Organizations that foster authentic behavior are more likely to have engaged, enthusiastic, motivated employees and psychologically safe cultures. In contrast, inauthenticity can often be recognized by others and become a disruptive, negative force, adding to uncertainty, distrust, and a lack of passion among employees. Authentic leadership benefits individuals, too.
Managers who struggle with inauthenticity often find themselves depleted, losing interest in their work, and experiencing low levels of job satisfaction. It takes a lot of energy to behave in ways that are out of sync with our true values, priorities, hopes, characteristics, and leadership style. The energy expended trying to come across as something you are not is energy unavailable for work and other activities.
Tips to Become An Authentic Leader
1. Self-awareness
Self-aware leaders use their awareness of emotions and how they impact others, as a method to inspire, motivate and challenge followers. Greater performance potential: Self-aware leaders are more trusted, and can give a clearer direction and purpose to their teams, raising their levels of performance.
An authentic leader reflects upon all of their actions and decisions and examines their own strengths and weaknesses without any bias. They put in a lot of effort to overcome their fears and uses their strengths to the maximum.
2. Focusing the long-term
An important part of a leader’s job is to help everyone understand where they are today, where they are going, and the path that will be taken to get to where they want to be. This path can be drawn out in milestones.
Authentic leaders don’t waste precious time unnecessarily worrying over temporary setbacks, or less than stellar results in the previous quarter or in the previous year for that matter. Their focus is always long-term. They know that patience and hard work do take time but yield rich results in the long run.
3. High Integrity
Leaders who demonstrate integrity garner trust among their colleagues. They aren’t afraid of the truth, and they stand up for what they believe in. This, in turn, leads to loyal customers, engaged workforce, increased profits, and win-win for all.
Strength of character is essential for an authentic leader. They don’t say things which they don’t mean, and they earn respect because of this quality. People trust them because they keep their word, no matter what it takes.
4. Lead with Purpose & Vision
Authentic Leaders believe in “Teamwork” that allows individuals to share their talents and energy to accomplish goals. An effective leader facilitates this teamwork process. When a leader leads with a vision, it means that s/he is really good at inspiring and motivating his/her team to help implement the organizational mission and thereby deliver the objectives and benefits.
Authentic leaders lead with purpose and vision. They always add value to people they interact with and help them realize higher professional goals which lead to better personal lives as well. They push themselves and others around them to raise the bar and aim for excellence.
5. Sharing the spotlight
The willingness to engage colleagues in the boardroom appears to also pay dividends in the stock market. Firms with CEOs and Heads of the Departments (HoDs) who made a habit of calling on junior colleagues to come and present the high value business ideas is itself a morale booster for the teams as rest of the employees will also be looking forward for such a opportunity.
When a company hires better listeners sitting at top, the benefits gets translated into the rest of the organization. This is one of the key qualities of the authentic leaders who stay backstage and bring in their top performers at the forefront. This is something that sets an authentic leader apart from the others. They not only build a good team but also give credit where it is due and shares success and achievements with the entire team.
Final Word
To sum it up, Authenticity, in every sphere of our lives, is not only significant but it is the healthy alignment between internal values and beliefs and external behaviours. Authenticity comes from finding our work style and our way of leading — and making decisions that reflect our ethics, values, and our personality.
And the last but not the least, lLeadership success starts with authenticity — doing our jobs without compromising our values and personality. People trust us when we are true to ourselves, and that trust makes it possible to get things done.
About the Author
Muhammad Sajwani is the Founder and Managing Director of Evolve HR which aims at transforming, enriching and evolving Human Capital of Pakistan, Evolve HR thrives in challenging assumptions that hinder organisational aspirations, by creating innovative solutions that yield maximum impact, scalability & benefit to a wider base of stakeholders. As a Business Coach and Organisational Consultant, Sajwani knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.
