Authentic Leadership Chiseled Down to its Essence
Your greatness is already within you.
We only need to chisel away at the surface and let it shine- just like Michaelangelo set free the form of David from one giant slab of marble.
Ready to blaze your own authentic path, but feel like you’re unprepared for the journey?
The packing for this trip is light. You won’t even need self-help books and podcast downloads where we’re going. To be an authentic leader, you need only to shed everything that isn’t your unique authentic leadership.
Case in point: Our limiting beliefs and logical fallacies that keep us comfortable and keep us from experiencing rejection. It’s a LOT easier to not launch a new business wholly outside of your experience or put your name in for the management position to avoid the possible sting of rejection.
But you’ve already realized these simple truths about yourself.
Time to investigate the greatness waiting right below the surface. To get there, we look at six essential components to unleashing the authentic leader you already are: values, beliefs, goals, skills, support and success.
The first component of authentic leadership: Your values.
You already know your values. Pause the podcast, put that book back on the shelf, and silence the guru.
Close your eyes right now and ask yourself: What are the three most important things for me to strive for?
For example, my values are integrity, empathy and curiosity. People who do what they say they’re going to do and do the right thing when no one is looking have integrity. I’ve always lived by the belief that “man (woman) is not an island” and empathy for fellow human beings is a value that benefits everyone. Curiosity is a value I cherish because it shows an insatiable desire to see new things, meet new people, and learn more about the world I live in.
I’ve talked about values before and how the phrase, “What’s in Your Wallet?” from Capital One is more than just a way to get us to sign up for a credit card. After all, if you value connection, you keep love notes and pictures in your wallet. Or if earning free rewards is your jam, your wallet may be packed with punch cards. If you value experiences, your wallet could be filled with membership cards to museums and art galleries. You get the idea. Your wallet is a microcosm of your life.
Really Jen? You’re getting all meta about my wallet? Yep. The things we carry, our wallets, our beliefs and our values, either serve us or weigh us down (George Constanza’s wallet anyone?).
Your values and your beliefs are interconnected.
You may not even know which came first or whether one is simply a natural consequence of the other.
If you hold a belief like, “I can’t take a risk to level up my business, because I might lose clients,” it may be because your values include things like security or predictability. There’s nothing wrong with those beliefs, but they might be holding you back. Did your belief come from your values or did your values come from your beliefs? Regardless, your beliefs AND your values mean you’re staying put at your current level of success.
You lead authentically when your actions reflect your beliefs and values.
When you do, your beliefs usually reflect what you think other people believe about you.
It might sound like this: “You have to stay in your lane and work in roles where you have experience.” No one would say or think that way - unless they had squelched a dream of their own before. Tune it out like the Peanuts kids did to Ms. Othmar (you can hear the trombone, am I right?).
Goals! Goals! Goals!
We’re not going to get into the SMART acronym. Been there, done that ad nauseum. Let’s distill what goals should do for you. Namely, goals should excite, motivate, challenge and inspire you to learn and grow. It is natural if they align with your values and beliefs you first identified.
A few years ago, I worked with a client whose goal was to earn enough money to pay off her student loans. This goal relates to her value of integrity and the resulting belief: “I need to pay off this loan to honor the promise I made when I took it out.”
It wasn’t as simple as promising a big bank that she’d make good on her promise, but that the degree she earned would put her in a position where she’d be able to make enough money to pay it back and put the debt in her rearview mirror.
What goals drive your actions? An authentic leader constantly asks this question and measures up her actions to the target she sets.
Acknowledging your skills and superpowers is key.
Maybe you already know what you’re good at (gold star, now keep going!).
Maybe you have some idea of what lights you up, but you’re still taking public comment.
Maybe you’re really good at pinpointing exactly what you need to be doing better.
So when’s the last time you sat down and acknowledged all the skills you have?
Look for…
Compliments you brush off.
Moments where you show up and do your thing as if you’re simply breathing.
Areas of life where you experience wild success.
Your Zone of Genius.
OWNING your skills will open up a world of possibilities.
Who’s in your support network?
Before we dive in, I’ve just got to share something I read this morning that made me chuckle:
“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.” - Drew Carey
There’s one easy way to find out who’s in your circle: Look at your text or chat messages, your social media, or your Google Calendar.
These are the people who are getting your time and energy.
If I asked you to list three things you’d rather be doing than meeting Tina for coffee, would you rattle off a list or scoff and say, “I wouldn’t miss seeing Tina for the world.”
Hopefully, it’s the latter, because your choices about WHO you are spending your precious time with shouldn’t be made out of boredom or obligation, or a lack of other things to do. Your time is way too valuable to be giving away to people who are not your biggest fans.
You’re someone who is committed to upleveling your life. So you must also be willing to put people into your support system who are just as committed to that success as you are. But let me make something clear: we don’t just need the cheerleaders. We need those willing to call us on our crap. Those aren’t always the easiest to find- that’s where an experienced, no-nonsense coach comes in.
Success is the cherry on top.
When we say, “What’s your why?” it’s just another way to say, “What does success look like to you?” Many of us turn our ‘why’ into a reason rather than something more impactful that gets us out of bed in the morning: a long-term vision of how we want to see the world.
Your unique success recipe may look nothing like societal definitions of success - a stable marriage, plenty of money in the bank, nice car, clothes, etc. (My personal definition of success includes lots of travel, quality time with family and friends, feeling healthy, and experiencing fulfillment by making a huge impact on other peoples’ lives.
Your success only has the meaning YOU give it.
Success is not the list of accomplishments or actions that got you to the top of your food chain.
Success is being fulfilled by the knowledge that you’re working on something bigger than yourself and the confines of your own brain.
Feeling chiseled yet?
It takes something to choose to level up - especially when you’re doing just fine where you are.
But surrounding yourself with the right people, the right questions, and the right definition of success (the one that’s right for you) reveals your personal leadership identity and the most authentic, most powerful leader that’s already waiting in the marble, ready to be shown to the world.