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Podcast, Season 2, Episode 18: Be a Better Leader: The Be-Attitudes of Better Leadership (Part 2, Be Authentic)

In this “Be A Better Leader” series of website articles and podcasts, I am talking about a variety of attributes, characteristics, and skills that are essential to effective leadership, and discussing how they are reflected in practice. I have grouped these things into five categories of what a leader ought to be, which is why I am labeling them as the “Be-attitudes of Better Leadership.” These five categories are: “Be Genuine,” “Be Relational,” “Be Trustworthy,” Be Knowledgeable,” and “Be Excellent.” Today in part 2, I am exploring the first category, “Be Genuine,” and more specifically, I am talking about the importance of being authentic. Here is the transcript of the podcast.

While there are many leadership styles and no single leadership type or personality, certain attitudes, skills, and characteristics are important in a leader for that leader to be effective, so I started thinking about what those things might be (pun intended). While not an all-inclusive list, I identified what I believe are a few of those “Be-Attitudes” in the context of leadership that are essential to leading well.

I spent 30 years in Christian education ministry, and the task to which God called me in that ministry was to bring healing and restoration to broken, hurting, and/or dysfunctional schools. One of those schools, in the Midwest appeared on the surface to have it all together, and was a stellar example of what excellence should look like. In fact, when my wife were considering accepting a position there, we were ready to decline it because it didn’t seem to have the ministry need that God had called us to serve. That is, until we learned what had happened behind the scenes. This school had recently gone through a crisis of leadership at both the board and administrative level that had caused great wounds, resulting in a lack of trust, a resistance to transparency, and lots of hurt. I took that job, and went into it knowing that one of my priorities (if not my greatest priority at the outset) was to bring healing and restore trust. As I prepared and prayed about how to do that, I knew that I would need to be very intentional about stating out loud things that I would be doing, and then making absolutely sure I actually did those things. From little things like, “I will be visiting your class tomorrow during 3rd period” to bigger things like, “On Friday I am going to send a survey out to all the teachers about whether or not we need to change ‘X’ and how we ought to approach it.” What I was doing was giving myself ways to demonstrate that I would do what I said I would do. I was showing them I could be trusted. I did that over and over again for the whole school year. I kept telling them what I would do and then doing it. In this week’s corresponding article, I reference Kouzes and Posner and their acronym, DWYSYWD, which stands for “Do What You Say You Will Do.” At the end of the school year, when I sat with the teachers and asked them to tell me the three best things about the year and three things to work on for next year, every single small group of teachers responded by saying that trust had been restored.

What I had done was to demonstrate authenticity in my character and in my leadership, and the result was that they began to trust me. In a culture where trust had been crushed and was absent, I was able to restore trust by being authentic. And please know that what I did was not to manipulate and deceive or put on a show. One of the personal character traits that matters to me is integrity, and so I wanted them to see that I had integrity and that I would keep my word. Therefore, I intentionally looked for ways that I could show them that’s who I really was, so that they could trust me. I would say what I was going to do, and then I would do what I said. They would have been able to tell if it wasn’t genuine, so it wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t real or authentic.

The lesson for you is that you too need to be authentic, which means being who you say you are, and modeling consistency and trustworthiness. Keep your word and do what you say you will do. I’ve shared several times on this podcast that my dad would say, “Your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks.” People hear what you say, but then they look at your actions to see if they match. When they do, that’s when they believe that you are authentic.

The bottom line is that people need to know that you are genuine, that you say what you do and do what you say, and that they can therefore trust you. That’s why authenticity is so important for your leadership. They want to believe you and believe in you, but if they can’t, they won’t want to follow you. And that’s why this is one of the most critical of the Be-Attitudes of Better Leadership. If you want to make a difference with your leadership, then be genuine by being authentic.

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Be A Better Leader: The Five Be-attitudes of Better Leadership (part 2, Be Authentic)

In this “Be A Better Leader” series of website articles and podcasts, I am talking about a variety of attributes, characteristics, and skills that are essential to effective leadership, and discussing how they are reflected in practice. I have grouped these things into five categories of what a leader ought to be, which is why I am labeling them as the “Be-attitudes of Better Leadership.” These five categories are: “Be Genuine,” “Be Relational,” “Be Trustworthy,” Be Knowledgeable,” and “Be Excellent.” Today in part 2, I am exploring the first category, “Be Genuine,” and more specifically, I am talking about the importance of being authentic.

I have worked with teenagers for years, and I believe one of their defining characteristics is a common dislike for hypocrisy. That is not to say that they don’t also demonstrate hypocrisy and wear masks themselves, but as a whole, they don’t like adults who say one thing and do another. They use the terms “hypocrite” or “fake” to describe this behavior, but there are also antonyms to these words that are particularly relevant to leadership: credible, genuine, real, or authentic. This belief or feeling, though, is not just true for teenagers; everyone dislikes hypocrisy and wants to see authenticity. This is a foundational principle that emerged in Kouzes & Posner’s leadership research, published in The Leadership Challenge, revealing that “more than anything, people want leaders who are credible. Credibility is the foundation of leadership.” This led to their statement of “The First Law of Leadership: if you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message.”

According to Peter Northouse, in Leadership: Theory and Practice, authentic leadership is leadership that is transparent, morally grounded, and responsive to people’s needs and values, and is developmental (a life-long process), intrapersonal (within), and interpersonal (relationship). In other words, authenticity is all about being genuine, real, and trustworthy, both with yourself and with others, and about showing genuine care for the best interest of others. Being authentic means being genuine, consistently matching your walk with your talk, and it is absolutely critical to effective leadership.

The most important component of authenticity is honesty. It is honesty that makes someone believable and trustworthy, because it becomes the visible evidence of integrity. According to Kouzes and Posner: “Regardless of what leaders say about their own integrity, people wait to be shown; they observe the behavior. Consistency between word and deed is how people judge someone to be honest.” You know this to be true. You can think of examples in your own experience of people who were dishonest and lacked integrity, and you know what you thought about those people and how it affected your level of trust. I don’t think anyone would question the significance of honesty. I think we also know that the “proof is in the pudding” – we decide someone’s honesty based on the actions that we see.

So then, besides the characteristic of honesty, what does authenticity look like?

First, you must understand that what it does not look like is imitation. To be authentic, you must be you, not someone else, and sometimes that is much more difficult than we realize. It’s fairly easy for us to try to take on attributes and characteristics of people we look up to, and it’s also appealing to try to imitate others who we want to be like. But the truth is, “no one can be authentic by trying to imitate someone else. You can learn from others’ experiences, but there is no way you can be successful when you are trying to be like them. People trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else” (George, et. al., Discovering your authentic leadership). It’s true that there are some things that we do because we have been exposed to an influential person in our lives; for example, I can point out a number of my own behaviors that reflect my father’s influence, and I can describe important ways in which my wife has shaped who I am. However, being affected by their influence does not mean that I am being them. Rather, everything I have learned has had to be applied in a way that matches my own personality and characteristics. I still have to be me.

Second, authenticity means that people can trust you to “DWYSYWD: Do What You Say You Will Do. DWYSYWD has two essential elements: say and do. To be credible in action, leaders must be clear about their beliefs; they must know what they stand for. That’s the “say” part. Then they must put what they say into practice: they must act on their beliefs and “do” (Kouzes and Posner). This characteristic will most clearly be revealed when the pressure is on and the challenge is great. Without question, “the values that form the basis for authentic leadership are derived from your beliefs and convictions, but you will not know what your true values are until they are tested under pressure” (George, et. Al.). When the heat is turned up, the fire will usually reveal your true colors, and that’s when people can see if your authenticity is real.

The conclusion, then, is that a leader must be authentic in order to be effective. People must be able to tell that you are genuine, that you are who you say you are because you do what you say you will do. Whether you realize it or not, you are being watched by your people, your family, your customers, and your community, so that they can determine if you are believable and therefore trustworthy. And if they don’t trust you, they won’t follow you. That’s why I believe that authenticity needs to be at the top of the list for every leader.

George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A. N., and Mayer, D., “Discovering Your Authentic Leadership” in HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership (2011).

Kouzes, J. M., and Posner, B. Z. (2002). The Leadership Challenge (3rd Ed.).

Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice.

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