The concept of authenticity at work was one of the most discussed business trends of 2015; and yet our demand for honest, transparent, genuine managers, colleagues and brands stretches much further back in history.
Ancient Greek philosophers wrote of the importance to “know thyself”. Shakespeare’s Polonius, chief counsellor to Hamlet, famously advises “To thine own self be true”. It seems our demand for authenticity in the workplace is as old as the workplace itself, and yet it remains – much like charisma – an elusive, almost unquantifiable quality, more easily defined by what it isn’t – it’s the trait that “trumps gamesmanship” says Your Inner CEO author Allan Cox; the antipathy of “sleek, ersatz, airbrushed leadership” (Goffee & Jones, Harvard Business Review); the antidote to the idea of some that “leadership is acting”, as Forbes writer Kevin Kruse recalls a CEO once expressed (“These same leaders seem shocked or confused when their employees don’t trust them, don’t like them, and can’t really wait to work elsewhere.”).
Authenticity isn’t just essential in leaders – it’s important to be trusted, respected, accessible and engaging throughout your entire career. This is how these well-respected businessmen and women achieved their gold star status in authentic leadership and how you can too.
Tell true stories from the heart
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wasn’t just considered one of the most authentic leaders of all time; he built a company whose brand values are so ingrained in the public consciousness that Apple employees themselves are today considered among the most innovative, forward-thinking, design-conscious technologists there are.
Nowhere is Jobs’ authentic leadership style more prominent than in his 2005 address to graduates of Stanford University. Sure, he manages to slip in a dig at Bill Gates (“Windows just copied Mac”) and he isn’t shy of trumping early successes (“We worked hard and in 10 years Apple had grown from the two of us in my garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees”). But nor is he afraid to discuss his crushing failures or personal tribulations – all told with utter conviction and in the sort of real, down to earth language everyone can relate to.
Opening by admitting that the podium was the closest he ever got to a college graduation (he dropped out of university after six months, saying he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and couldn’t justify spending his working class parents’ hard earned savings on his tuition), he went on to discuss the “devastating, public failure” he experienced when, at the age of 30, he was sacked from the company he’d founded. “Something began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. I’d been rejected but I was still in love. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, karma, whatever.”
The DIY approach: In the absence of a book deal for your life story, how can you tell your own true stories in the workplace? Start during your next presentation – even if it’s just your usual five minute update in the weekly team meeting. Think about the facts you want to convey and how you can get the message across without using office jargon or rattling off statistic after statistic. Can you tell a story to explain how or why something had the outcome it did? Keep it succinct and give your colleagues a reason to keep listening by not giving away too much too soon: “Clear, meaningful, and simple are the rules that apply to maxims. By replacing buzzwords with personal stories and experience, you will humanise yourself. In many cases you will endear yourself to your team. They will understand what you stand for and appreciate the time and effort you put into distilling your philosophy down,” says Mike Figliuolo, author of One Piece Of Paper: The Simple Approach To Powerful, Personal Leadership.
Know – and own – your weaknesses
It’s easy to dislike political leaders who dodge questions rather than admit they don’t know all the answers; or business leaders who fail to take responsibility for their corporation’s unethical actions. In a world shaped by the uncertainty of the global financial crisis, the ability to ‘admit’ weakness – rather than cover up flaws – is seen as the mark of a true leader.
In her June 2015 address to graduates of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told students that regular feedback is the secret to her successful working relationship with boss Mark Zuckerberg.
Immediately on joining, the told the founder of the social network that every week in her 1-2-1 she wanted to receive feedback, particularly around anything she was doing that wasn’t working. “For the first few years, we stuck to this routine and met every Friday afternoon to voice concerns big and small,” she said. “As the years went by, sharing honest reactions became part of our relationship, and we now do so in real time rather than waiting for the end of the week.”
Over time, she realised that her mistake had been in not asking for feedback from the other direction – her direct reports and indeed the entire workforce. She took action to change this after she realised that a directive she’d issued had been received negatively, telling her staff: “Next time you hear a bad idea — speak up. Even if you think it is what I have asked for, tell me I am wrong!”
The DIY approach: conduct a thorough analysis of your strengths and weaknesses. One way to uncover the former is to think about those tasks that come easily to you, which energise and motivate you and seem to require little or no effort. When thinking about the latter, consider which tasks you most dread, stress about or which deplete your energy. No amount of training courses or coaching may be able to turn those weaknesses into strengths, but you can minimise their impact by taking action. Share your plan with your boss, asking for feedback on your analysis of strengths and weaknesses and for guidance around how you can move forward in a way that makes the most of your strengths and neutralises your weaknesses.
Establish your personal brand in every piece of communication
A leader who has a chatty, informal presenting style is going to appear inauthentic if their Tweets are formal and stuffy; the jokey meeting persona won’t wash with staff if the follow up email from the boss is dry and humourless. Consistency is key to an authentic personal brand – once you’ve defined yours, think about how you project it in every workplace performance – presenting, walking into a meeting room, meeting a new stakeholder for the first time, how you represent yourself at networking events, and maybe even how you sign off your emails.
When Yahoo executive Melissa Geisler sent a journalist an email with a sign off that included a quote from the American cartoon Family Guy, it stood out so much that our use of “Best”, “Cheers” and “Regards” became the subject of a Forbes article.
And more recently, the humble email signoff has taken a bashing, with Bloomberg declaring some of those in common usage “charmless”, “pallid”, “vulgarised”, “lazy”, “impersonal” and “abrupt”!
The DIY approach: Conduct an analysis of all the many ways you communicate with others beyond face to face conversation – instant messaging, email, body language, via social media, gestures across a room. What does each say about your personal brand? Are you delivering a consistent message about who you are and what you stand for? Finally, when it comes to email, whether you’re a “best”, “cheers” or a “tnx so much” kind of woman, think about what that conveys to the reader. And if in doubt about what to use, try nothing at all: “You can continue using best but it’s meaningless and empty. I push for no signoff. Just end the email. Use your judgement; context really helps. If you just think about it you can rewrite the email in a way that ends with a thoughtful thought or a question, you don’t need the ending and you sound professional,” says Bloomberg’s Rebecca Greenfield.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wasn’t just considered one of the most authentic leaders of all time; he built a company whose brand values are so ingrained in the public consciousness that Apple employees themselves are today considered among the most innovative, forward-thinking, design-conscious technologists there are.
Nowhere is Jobs’ authentic leadership style more prominent than in his 2005 address to graduates of Stanford University. Sure, he manages to slip in a dig at Bill Gates (“Windows just copied Mac”) and he isn’t shy of trumping early successes (“We worked hard and in 10 years Apple had grown from the two of us in my garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees”). But nor is he afraid to discuss his crushing failures or personal tribulations – all told with utter conviction and in the sort of real, down to earth language everyone can relate to.
Opening by admitting that the podium was the closest he ever got to a college graduation (he dropped out of university after six months, saying he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life and couldn’t justify spending his working class parents’ hard earned savings on his tuition), he went on to discuss the “devastating, public failure” he experienced when, at the age of 30, he was sacked from the company he’d founded. “Something began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. I’d been rejected but I was still in love. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, karma, whatever.”
The DIY approach: In the absence of a book deal for your life story, how can you tell your own true stories in the workplace? Start during your next presentation – even if it’s just your usual five minute update in the weekly team meeting. Think about the facts you want to convey and how you can get the message across without using office jargon or rattling off statistic after statistic. Can you tell a story to explain how or why something had the outcome it did? Keep it succinct and give your colleagues a reason to keep listening by not giving away too much too soon: “Clear, meaningful, and simple are the rules that apply to maxims. By replacing buzzwords with personal stories and experience, you will humanise yourself. In many cases you will endear yourself to your team. They will understand what you stand for and appreciate the time and effort you put into distilling your philosophy down,” says Mike Figliuolo, author of One Piece Of Paper: The Simple Approach To Powerful, Personal Leadership.
It’s easy to dislike political leaders who dodge questions rather than admit they don’t know all the answers; or business leaders who fail to take responsibility for their corporation’s unethical actions. In a world shaped by the uncertainty of the global financial crisis, the ability to ‘admit’ weakness – rather than cover up flaws – is seen as the mark of a true leader.
In her June 2015 address to graduates of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told students that regular feedback is the secret to her successful working relationship with boss Mark Zuckerberg.
Immediately on joining, the told the founder of the social network that every week in her 1-2-1 she wanted to receive feedback, particularly around anything she was doing that wasn’t working. “For the first few years, we stuck to this routine and met every Friday afternoon to voice concerns big and small,” she said. “As the years went by, sharing honest reactions became part of our relationship, and we now do so in real time rather than waiting for the end of the week.”
Over time, she realised that her mistake had been in not asking for feedback from the other direction – her direct reports and indeed the entire workforce. She took action to change this after she realised that a directive she’d issued had been received negatively, telling her staff: “Next time you hear a bad idea — speak up. Even if you think it is what I have asked for, tell me I am wrong!”
The DIY approach: conduct a thorough analysis of your strengths and weaknesses. One way to uncover the former is to think about those tasks that come easily to you, which energise and motivate you and seem to require little or no effort. When thinking about the latter, consider which tasks you most dread, stress about or which deplete your energy. No amount of training courses or coaching may be able to turn those weaknesses into strengths, but you can minimise their impact by taking action. Share your plan with your boss, asking for feedback on your analysis of strengths and weaknesses and for guidance around how you can move forward in a way that makes the most of your strengths and neutralises your weaknesses.
A leader who has a chatty, informal presenting style is going to appear inauthentic if their Tweets are formal and stuffy; the jokey meeting persona won’t wash with staff if the follow up email from the boss is dry and humourless. Consistency is key to an authentic personal brand – once you’ve defined yours, think about how you project it in every workplace performance – presenting, walking into a meeting room, meeting a new stakeholder for the first time, how you represent yourself at networking events, and maybe even how you sign off your emails.
When Yahoo executive Melissa Geisler sent a journalist an email with a sign off that included a quote from the American cartoon Family Guy, it stood out so much that our use of “Best”, “Cheers” and “Regards” became the subject of a Forbes article.
And more recently, the humble email signoff has taken a bashing, with Bloomberg declaring some of those in common usage “charmless”, “pallid”, “vulgarised”, “lazy”, “impersonal” and “abrupt”!
The DIY approach: Conduct an analysis of all the many ways you communicate with others beyond face to face conversation – instant messaging, email, body language, via social media, gestures across a room. What does each say about your personal brand? Are you delivering a consistent message about who you are and what you stand for? Finally, when it comes to email, whether you’re a “best”, “cheers” or a “tnx so much” kind of woman, think about what that conveys to the reader. And if in doubt about what to use, try nothing at all: “You can continue using best but it’s meaningless and empty. I push for no signoff. Just end the email. Use your judgement; context really helps. If you just think about it you can rewrite the email in a way that ends with a thoughtful thought or a question, you don’t need the ending and you sound professional,” says Bloomberg’s Rebecca Greenfield. 
