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.
