What makes an authentic leader and why it matters to your organisation
Whilst working with organisations and their boards we often recognise the need to demonstrate authentic leadership. We usually nod sagely and agree but wonder how we might demonstrate it. I have come to realise that authentic leadership is not a single skill but a complex combination of characteristics, beliefs, attributes and skills. So:
What is the real meaning of authentic leadership and why can it make a difference to your organisation?
Leadership is the delivery stage of an effective business where authentic leaders instil a clear sense of purpose, how to do it (process) and what’s in it for stakeholders (pay off) so that followers see it, own it and do it. Business success comes from leaders and followers working together as a team.
Authentic leaders engage audiences and have the personality, skills and capabilities to bring people with them. They build trust, both delivering for today and banking goodwill for any future issues or crises the organisation will face. Who predicted Covid-19? Yet those organisations with authentic leaders and trusted brands from the largest of organisations to the local pub benefit from the collective support of their customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Internally, authentic leaders ‘walk the talk’, engage employees and reduce employee churn.
How do we recognise authentic leaders?
They are self-aware and genuine, lead with their hearts, not just their minds, are mission-driven and focused on results. Their focus is on the long term.
So, what makes an authentic leader?
Authentic leadership is not just another style that you adopt. It is about developing the image or persona of a leader – what character sits behind the style. As Warren Bennis said: “Leadership without perspective and point of view isn’t leadership – and of course it must be your own perspective and your own point of view. It must be authentic and if it is, it will be original, because you are original.”
Great leaders reflect on their own leadership style and identify ways of becoming an even better leader, but what does this mean? It means identifying the key elements and benefits of authentic leadership, assessing their own leadership style and developing actions to become a more authentic leader.
How do leaders develop to become authentic leaders?
Authentic leadership is built on context, character and competence.
Breaking this down we have the Authentic Leadership Checklist, which allows up to look at the three areas of context, character and competence in greater detail.
The ability to grasp context is of primary importance.
Authentic leaders understand and adapt to context. With Covid-19 many leaders and boards have had to review their strategy.
- Direction: they connect the situation to the overall direction as an organisation and demonstrate their support for the team through their actions, words and behaviours
- Industry: they understand the dynamics of their industry and how it influences the situation. Also they are self-aware enough to understand how being part of a particular industry can limit their view in this situation
- History: they address any negative history and successfully put it behind them in this situation as source of learning and information not a driver of future action
- Difference: they build a physically and cognitively diverse organisation/team and have drawn on different perspectives to create solutions
- Culture: they identify the role culture plays in the situation and identify how to use this situation to minimise cultural resistance dimensions that hold the organisation back
Character is the bedrock of authentic leaders.
Authentic leaders lead based on a set of positive core values that are demonstrated through their leadership actions. Authentic leaders demonstrate the following:
- Values: they determine the values at play in this situation and how to solve the challenge while preserving their values
- Equity and fairness: they assess the full range of group interests and proactively move to deal with this situation even though it may be costly or difficult
- Hope: they align the situation with their values, vision and mission
- Wisdom: they engage others from their field as advisors to help with the situation
- People: they apply emotional intelligence to separate out their feelings from the solution in order to navigate it objectively
- Courage: they are transparent with their words and actions and have removed barriers to reaching their shared vision and achieving their goals even if the course of action is difficult
Competence is essential.
Authentic leaders deliver through their competence.
- Self-awareness: they identify how their strengths and limitations will impact on this situation
- Communication: their messages are concise and tailored to the audience and have confirmed the meaning of their messages have been received as intended
- Joined up thinking: they identify how the situation is helped or hindered by silos and organisational structures
- Problem solving: they lead the creation of a range solutions that will solve the problem and honour core values
- Expertise: they have the knowledge and experience to lead the situation and importantly understand the gaps in their or the teams expertise and address it
- Accountability: they accept responsibility for the outcomes of the situation
- Strategic focus: they determine whether this is a tactical or strategic situation. Does it deliver the purpose and vision
Both PR and HR have taken up the gauntlet of authentic leadership with, amongst others, Linuan Rita Men and Don Stacks’ paper in the Journal of Public Relations Research (2014), leadership communications manager, Shalini Gupta’s, guest post at Browning York and Ravit Oren, an organisational leadership expert, considering Bill George’s thoughts in HR Magazine (2019).
Authenticity inspires trust, engagement and loyalty. Authentic leaders can cope with unpredictability through the application of judgement. In these times of prolonged Covid-19 uncertainty where there are few precedents, great leaders draw upon their character and competence within the context to deliver the desired outcomes, the ‘so what’ of business, the successful business.