How can I be authentic AND effective in my role? How can I stay true to who I am, while meeting the organization’s expectations of me? For many leaders this is a challenging question. It forms the focus of much of my coaching with younger leaders in particular.
Authenticity features prominently in “future focused” conversations about leadership and leadership development. For example, a recent Center for Creative Leadership report on senior executives’ views on future leadership trends names authenticity as “the new celebrity”.
Much of the conversation about authenticity takes an individualistic perspective – focusing on the concept of knowing oneself and being true to oneself. This perspective puts the onus all on the individual, and virtually ignores the social context side of the authenticity equation.
In a recent blog post Roger Martin offers a thought provoking twist on the authenticity theme by expanding it to the social context.
Martin’s key point is that many of the factors at play in business create what he calls “unhealthy and inauthentic community”. He minces no words about the impact of this on current leaders and potential future leaders:
“By encouraging executives to live a lie and pay daily homage to an inauthentic and unhealthy community, we are sapping the moral authority and strength of the business community. And we are causing many young people to think that they want to avoid it like the plague because they want to be authentic.“
Roger lists five characteristics of healthy, authentic communities.
“A healthy community:
- Believes in reciprocity rather than exploitation.
- Believes in long-term relationships rather than one-off encounters.
- Protects its weakest members rather than targeting them for gouging.
- Worries about the externalities they create rather than turning a blind eye to them.
- Discouraging its members from playing games that endangers them rather than encouraging them.“
Encouraging a healthy and authentic community in business and organizations is about putting ethics, the common good, community and relationships at the core of how we organize ourselves into business organizations.
Three ideas triggered by Martin’s distinction between authentic and inauthentic communities:
- Striving to be authentic in a healthy, authentic community is clearly very different from striving to be authentic in a community that is unhealthy and inauthentic. Quite simply, the challenge is far less daunting, with far greater scope for developing one’s best self in context. And because less psychic energy is required for the authenticity struggle, individuals have more to contribute to the organization.
- Young people are strongly attracted to “healthy, authentic community”, as defined by Martin. In a series of group interviews I recently did for a youth leadership organization the following stood out at key attractors for them: community and relationships, service, caring for each other, doing good and positive impact.
- The mindset and skills required to lead an organization committed to healthy authentic community are quite different from the mindset and skills required to lead successfully in world where maximizing shareholder value trumps everything. This has obvious implications for selection and for leadership development.
