Authentic Leadership: 4 Steps to Reveal Your True Self

A client recently asked me “How do I get in touch with my authentic self?”

I related the following story …

“There was once a man who was very forgetful. When he got up in the morning, it was so hard for him to find his clothes that at night he hesitated to go to bed for thinking of the trouble he would have on waking.

One evening he finally made a great effort, took paper and pencil, and as he undressed noted down exactly where he had put everything he had on.

The next morning very well pleased with himself, he took the slip of paper in his hand and read: “cap”, there it was, he set it on his head; “pants”, there they lay, he got into them; and so it went on until he was fully dressed.

“That’s all very well, but now where am I myself?’ he asked in great consternation. ‘Where in the world am I?’ He looked and looked but it was a vain search; he could not find himself.”

And that is how it is with many of us. As leaders we undertake 360-degree appraisals, and personality tests and go to very long lengths to dissect and categorize who we are. We then ‘put on’ personality traits and capabilities to become a ‘better’ person and perform more effectively.

In reality, we are treating ourselves as objects like jam jars with measurable characteristics and then comparing ourselves against a psychological standard to determine if we are ‘normal.’ Worse still we then identify ourselves with inauthentic ideas, thoughts, beliefs, taken-for-granted assumptions and worldviews, and wear them like masks that cover who we really are in our core.

Being authentic as a leader means peeling back the layers so we can reveal and relate to our experience of who we really are. Not the way we describe who we are, but the actual way we feel and what we value in each moment.

When you get in touch with your actual experience (your emotions, bodily sensations and thoughts in the moment), you can create the link to what you value and care about. This deeper sense of identity points the way toward the action you can take to make your life more workable.

Following are four steps to get in touch with your authentic self:

1. Awareness: Notice what you’re experiencing at this very moment — your bodily sensations, thoughts, emotions, sights and sounds around you. You may feel pain in your shoulders, or hot or cold feet, feelings of anxiety, fear or excitement. This awareness is sending you an important message. Listen.

2. Values: What do you care about? And how does your experience signal to you what you value? For example, you may be feeling anxious, which signals the relationship with your team isn’t going well. Or you notice tension in your body, and fear gripping your chest, which is telling you your performance is under question. These emotional signals are telling you that you value your career and the relationships you have.

3. Choice: Choose an action to help you move towards your values. Recognise that no action means you have also made an unconscious choice.

4. Action: Create an action that will move you towards your values. For example, you may set a time to talk to your team about how to improve your relationship. Or you may make an appointment with your manager to find out how to perform better in your job. Or you may enrol in leadership course to learn how to communicate more effectively.

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