Courageous Authenticity. This sounds amazing. And confusing. What is it to be courageously authentic? These are buzzwords along with EQ and self-awareness that are being thrown around in the area of leadership development, but what do they mean exactly and are they truly important to success?
This is something I have been struggling with myself, so this blog is a bit of catharsis for me. How do I show up and be who I truly am? Who am I truly? These existential questions make my head hurt and send me to the freezer for ice cream. But they continue to come up for me in the work I do with my clients, their lives and work, and my own life and work.
In striving to be “authentic” we have to strip away what we think we “should” be and begin to be comfortable with who we are. Warts and all. Weakness and all. In the world of social media and the ability to appear perfect, that can be intimidating.
This all comes to the nasty word “vulnerability”.
Brené Brown has researched and written extensively on the topics of vulnerability and authenticity and she expresses it like this.
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” – Brené Brown
So basically, it is admitting and taking ownership of our imperfections and weaknesses. Vulnerable. Scary.
This begs the question, “Will people follow a leader who shows weakness?”
We all show weakness, but we do not all admit weakness. Those who admit their weakness are actually showing their strength.
As we go through our day, we can turn on our auto pilot and just get through like any other day or we can turn it off and begin to really pay attention to how we are showing up and the impact we are having on the world around us.
I have found that leaders who are willing to do this are the ones mastering courageous authenticity.
They have chosen to look inside and pay attention to not only their thoughts, but also their feelings at work. They have chosen to express themselves in a way that is true to their core beliefs. They have chosen to even think about their core beliefs. They are willing to strip away the ”should” and “ought to” out of their leadership vocabulary and come from a place that is true. They have chosen the harder path of thinking about hard things.
An example of this just happened with a female leader I was working with. In discussing what “successful female leaders” look like, she started with the word “strong”.
Okay, what does that look like?
She began by saying a strong woman was invulnerable, impenetrable, tough minded, but after a few more of those words she stopped and said,
“I actually don’t think this. I think that is what other people expect of strong women, but I believe a strong female leader is warm, vulnerable, willing to own her mistakes, able to make tough calls and be honest, but also empathetic.”
A different picture altogether. She had been living on autopilot. Not challenging her thoughts. With closer examination, she changed her truth and in turn changed how she began to lead. The result was a commitment to be more present and available in order to build the trust of her team. I suspect she will find a team who is grateful she took the time to challenge her autopilot.
Working for the second version of a strong leader sounds much more inspiring.
Each of us have limiting beliefs that we are working from. Fears that hold us back from living more into who we are. What is that for you? How is that impacting your leadership?
Do you need to be liked? Do you need to be strong? How do you need to be seen?
For me, writing about something that I am still working through in my own life and career is vulnerable. I am not the expert but simply a sojourner, but I like to be seen as an expert.
Each day, making a decision to shed the version of what I think others need me to be in order to be more of who I am is part of my journey in courageous authenticity.
“Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable , but they’re never weakness” — Brené Brown