LEADERS BALANCE AUTHENTICITY WITH SELF-AWARENESS

For many years, mentors and bosses emphasized to me that one key to great leadership is “authenticity.” They would tell me: “Don’t try to be someone else. Don’t strive to be a carbon copy of your past leaders. Just be yourself every minute of the day.”

And for decades I have believed that authenticity is a critical component of good leadership. Many leaders try to be something they are not. They think that they can be carbon copies of terrific leaders for whom they have worked.
That approach does not succeed, I have long believed. Leaders must fall back on four key things:

-their own beliefs,

-their core values,

-the paradigms with which they see the world,

-their organization and their colleagues.

Then, this week, I came across a new book that turns that advice on its head. According to this new book, “Don’t Be Yourself” by esteemed psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, scientific research shows that leaders who focus on being themselves often overlook what matters more: how other people experience their behavior.

The author argues that the most successful people aren’t those who rigidly “stay true to themselves.” They’re the ones who adapt and evolve, largely by paying a great deal of attention to how others see them and adjusting their behavior to the requirements of each situation. He believes that the evidence is clear: when we focus less on expressing our authentic selves and more on understanding others, we become better leaders.

The theme of this new book is that self-awareness is more critical for good leadership than authenticity. Now that I am doing leadership coaching and volunteering on four non-profit boards, I see the critical nature of self-awareness play out in a variety of leadership situations. Young, mid-career and experienced leaders who possess wonderful leadership skills often do not appreciate how they come across to their colleagues and their teammates.

Ironically, those colleagues and teammates, who often value and praise their leaders’ strengths, are unwilling or fearful about giving valuable feedback about those leaders’ accompanying challenges. They fear their honesty will not be rewarded with appreciation and might even be responded to with denial or even anger.

This shift in emphasis from authenticity to self-awareness reminded me of one of my favorite books, “”Insight” by Tasha Eurich. The subtitle of the book, originally published in 2017, is “Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and Life.”

One of the most valuable elements of Eurich’s book is her appendices, which include a number of exercises, including:

-A week-long group of exercises to enhance self-awareness

-A quiz that allows you to clarify your most important values

-A list of proven assessment tools that help you identify your passions

-Questions that will help you clarify your aspirations or what you want to experience and achieve

-Exploration of where you fit in best – the type of environment you need to be happy and engaged

-A series of questions to assist you in understanding your own strengths and weaknesses as a leader

-A quiz to help you learn the effect your behavior has on other people

-An examination of your “unknown unknowns” and the assumptions you carry before you make critical decisions

-A quiz that helps you identify your own narcissistic tendencies

-A test of your own level of humility

-An assessment of your need for the absolute truth, an enemy of insight

-A measure of how frequently you ruminate and how much power “The Ruminator” has over you

– A guide to whether, when faced with a challenging task, you see it as a learning opportunity ( a “learn-well” mindset) or as a performance opportunity (a “do-well” mindset)

-A test for how well you use the best tool we have for becoming more externally self-aware- getting honest, objective feedback from others

-A list of free 360-degree feedback options

As you consider your own leadership journey, think about your perspectives on authenticity AND self-awareness. How can you achieve a healthy balance? Authenticity and self-awareness are certainly not “either/or” options – They are “both/and” choices.

The key point to remember is that it is always beneficial to look in the mirror and identify your own leadership growth goals and aspirations. Only you know what works best for you!!!

If you believe this content would resonate with a friend or colleague, please feel free to forward it along!

-Larry