Authentic Leadership – good or bad?

Earlier this week my friend and discussion partner Daniel Hommel posted on LinkedIn about authentic leadership, and how it has become an unrealistic expectation; you cannot share everything with your employees and you will have to play theater to do what is needed. He claims that by expecting them to be authentic, we also force them to play more theater.

To no-one’s surprise, I disagree with the premis. To me it is very important to have integrity, and to be honest and authentic. I see myself as an authentic leader and what you see is what you get. No hidden agendas.

I have many strong opinions on this, so my answer to his post on LinkedIn was too long even for two comments. Therefor I have turned it into this blog post.

Even if I don’t agree with Daniel in this case, he does write good stuff, so consider following him on LinkedIn for posts on change and leadership.

I agree with some of what of what Daniel writes. I agree that as a leader/manager, there are things you cannot share whether it is about a person or the company. I agree that there are sides of yourself that you may not want to show at work.

I agree that integrity is important – having high morals and living by them. I agree that honesty is important; I believe that transparency is important.

Authenticity is important; what the discussion on Daniel’s post showed is that we use the same word for different things. It does not have to mean that all of you is exposed at all times also the personal stuff. It is a scale and a balance, but what the leader does expose should be genuine. Being yourself at work does not mean that it has to be all of you that you bring; there is a context, and there are things that you may want to keep private. We can choose.

It is like transparency and honesty.

Being honest does not mean saying every thought that pops up in your head. Nor does it mean saying it in the way that pops up. Transparency does not mean expose everything.

Sometimes you will have two or more values that contradict, so both can not be fulfilled. Like a leader, who knows there is a firing round coming up. They want to be transparent. They also want to create a safe environment for their employees, follow union rules, have time to prepare good conversation. At a time like that the leader needs to make a tough decision. I still think they can be genuine and authentic.

Expectations

I agree that we should stop having unrealistic expectations that leaders cannot live up to. There are already many things a leader is expected to be and do, and they don’t always get the support to grow into this if they don’t already have the skills for it.

What I do not agree on, is that it means you cannot be authentic, if you are a leader.

Being authentic is about being genuine. It is about living your values. You can be authentic and still show different sides of you. You can be authentic in a meeting with the executives and discuss the crisis in the company, and you can be authentic around your reports without mentioning the crisis. Authenticity can be answering a question by saying that you cannot answer that.

Being an authentic leader means truly caring about your people and not pretenting. It means truly caring about the company. An authentic leader must take both into account. They set up frames that the employees might not agree on. They do things that they don’t like. And they do it because they genuinely think it is the right thing to do.

We sometimes mistake authenticity for total transparency as if we were made of glass and everything was visible to everyone at all times. Perhaps we should start talking about what we really expect instead of using one word; create discussions about the expectations instead serving them ready made. (If you did not already know, clear expectations is another thing that I feel very strongly about 🙂 )

Is it easy to be authentic? Is it easy to have integrity? Is it easy to be honest? No, sometimes it can be very hard and that is when our values are truly tested.

As an example: it is hard to fire people. It is also part of being a manager. If you cannot fire someone, you should not be a manager. We don’t always chose, if we are to fire people. What we do chose is, if we show up in an authentic way.

Being a leader is also about doing the things that are hard when it is necessary. This is part of what we can expect from a leader. We should not have unrealistic expectations, but I believe we should have high expectations of a leader. We should not expect them to be perfect, but we should expect them to have self-reflection and self growth. And we should expect a company to provide support for this.

So no I do not agree. I think it is a realistic expectation to have authentic leaders. It may take them a while to get there, but what is the alternative? To have “ungenuine” leaders? Questionable leaders? Dishonest leaders? Insincere leaders?

Authentic leaders help make a good organisation – and they may need help to get there. So the answer is “yes, authentic leadership is good”.