A cornerstone of optimal leadership is authenticity. Without being genuine and truthful and having integrity across all situations, a leader can’t build trust and inspire followers.
According to researchers and authors of The Leadership Circle Profile, there are five Creative Competencies of effective leadership that progress across a continuum that contains People (#1 Relating) on one side to Tasks (#5 Achieving) on the other. These are the cornerstones of leadership.
Authenticity sits right in the center and is the bedrock of leadership. Strong and deep relationships cannot develop without it. Nobody can respect you, nor hence be inspired by you, without authenticity.
The five competencies that lead to optimal leadership are:
- Relating (Cornerstone)
- Self-Awareness
- Authenticity (Bedrock)
- Systems Awareness
- Achieving (Cornerstone)
A question I ask many leaders is: Tell me about the most powerful boss you ever worked for, the one that got the most out of you, and inspired you to do your best work?
They always tell me about someone who was authentic with high integrity. They respected them even when they didn’t agree with them.
The corollary to that, I like to ask: What boss did you the most harm? Who didn’t ever get your best? Who would you do the least for and could not trust?
I point out they didn’t have an authentic relationship with you and they were out of integrity with you. Although any relationship is a two-way street, a leader is someone who can develop those relationships individually and cumulatively by being an authentic and congruent (in integrity) person in all relationships.
I believe this authentic dimension of leadership is the hardest for any leader to affect. It takes work. It takes awareness. It takes growth.
This authentic competency doesn’t always come easily but it is worth it because it affects every aspect of life. Every person you work with will improve personally and productively when you become clearly authentic with them.
What this means is that in order to have optimal leadership that drives high performance for an organization, leaders must excel in Authenticity. There is no way around it.
I discussed relating here, and self-awareness here in previous posts. Let’s explore Authenticity further. What do we mean by Authenticity?
There are many definitions, but I’ll refer here to the one used in the 360 degree feedback assessment from The Leadership Circle Profile (LCP).
In the work I do coaching leaders, I find some people are often uncomfortable discussing intangibles like values and principles and integrity. What does character have to do with business results, after all, they ask me.
Apparently a lot. Those leaders who are rated high in integrity and courageous authenticity by the people who work with them are also the very same leaders who obtain the highest business performance.
Authenticity isn’t vague at all. It can be observed through actions and speech and quantified. How you measure up has everything to do with how effective you are as a leader.
And because it can be quantified and measured, that means we can improve our score by adjusting behaviors to align with integrity and authentic actions.
What about you, what do you think? As always, I’d love to hear from you. I can be reached at 425-533-4330 or email Marty@VondrellLeadership.com, here or on LinkedIn.