It makes us feel good about being true to ourselves, and it communicates itself to others immediately, building trust and respect, even if one’s particular views differ. But why is it talked about such a lot, and why does it seem that people struggle to be authentic?
I think a lot of it is about the systems around us, which make us feel we have to be something other than ourselves, but also it can be about lack of self-belief and a form of short-sightedness, where we cannot always see how great we were, or are, intended to be. Let me explain both of these reasons.
The system around us can influence how we behave, of course. Certain work reward systems, the way our leaders behave, the way we have seen successful business being done – these factors can all contribute to us trying to conform to what we see as acceptable, and not allowing ourselves to ‘stick out’ by being a bit different. It’s like being back in the playground sometimes: little Johnny is being picked on, and we know this is wrong, but we don’t speak up for fear of being picked on ourselves. We don’t want to be the first to put our head above the parapet, even if we know we are right. I’ll come back to courage and fear another time.
In the work world, it has often, in the last decades at least, been about towing the line, saying what top management wants to hear, and standing behind things we don’t necessarily believe in – not being true to our values, because that’s our job – we think. That’s what we have seen people rewarded for, and we feel our way, trying desperately not to do anything which might jeopardise our future. Our school systems have taught us to conform, and that’s often what we try to do, as we are eager to please. Things are of course moving towards a more democratic and inclusive workplace, but I do wonder if they’d really been changing as many of us hoped and believed, whether we would have been faced with the number of corporate failures experienced over recent years and of course the financial crisis. The point here is: we are not encouraged to be our authentic selves, and that’s an issue.
Younger people joining the workforce are of course questioning the ‘yes person’ mentality, as I hear from their friends at university who are rightly anxious about the step into full time work given what they are hearing: 16-hour days, highly competitive (the word actually means ‘striving together’, but is used here in the sense of dog eat dog), and very dull, - not really empowered. They had hoped to work somewhere where they would be living their values, authentically, but that’s not the reality yet.
It’s not all bad of course. Sometimes we experience inspiring people, and we want to be like them. We want to emulate them because they are good at what they do, and we want to be good too. And they are authentic. However, sometimes others’ words do not sit well coming out of our mouths. At a very simple level, I always advise to write your own speeches and presentations – delivering someone else’s just doesn’t work. At the least, we need to tailor them, - make them our own. Do you recognise any of this? Have you ever had to present someone else’s work, and find yourself uncomfortable just reading out someone else’s thoughts? Even a little tweaking or tailoring can make it your own – as that’s what has to happen – you have to own it.
So, we have a dilemma here. We want to emulate something we have seen which is inspiring, and in which we believe. But it’s not us. We feel a fake. How can we do this authentically? In my experience, it’s about practice, and coming to own something for yourself. As an ex-musician, I know that practice makes perfect, and that we can in fact become very comfortable with something which at first seems quite alien or even impossible. I remember a time when my new teacher was trying to correct a bad habit I had when playing the flute: my wrist was not tucked in sufficiently to demonstrate the perfect flute-playing posture, which might hold me back in terms of speed of playing fast music in the future. This new way of holding the flute, which involved hours and days and months of playing in front of the mirror, felt SO uncomfortable! Until muscle memory locked in and it became my new norm. So I believe that, as long as the intent is right, we can evolve, learning from others, into what we really would like to be, - our true, authentic self. But it takes determination, belief and practice. And we have to convince ourselves that we’re not being fake, - we’re learning a new skill, which will help us to be the real us we envision for the future, the one that reaches our full potential.
So why not try out different forms of expression, and different versions of you – all the while authentic, given your end goal is in line with your beliefs and values?
And if you really understand yourself and your strengths, and use them, you’ll naturally be authentic – one of the key factors in gaining the trust and respect of others. Being your real self – people respect that. And part of being your real self of course is admitting failures, and weaknesses. There’s always a time and a place of course, but think about how you feel when someone you really admire admits they made a mistake. We are brought up to feel that only children make mistakes, and adults are perfect. And there is a view that if, too early, mistakes are admitted, this can affect children’s sense of security, so from adulthood we are trained to hide our vulnerability. But hey – when did you ever pull the wool over a child’s eyes? They ‘get’ when someone is covering up, even if they don’t understand the whole story or context. And that’s what adults do too.
I believe we respect those who admit to their failings, and of course, as we all know – we learn from our mistakes, so admitting to them actually just opens up a new chapter of learning to share with others. And that’s got to be good, right?
When we try to define authenticity, it’s not quite the same as honesty. It is honest, but it’s about being true to one’s own self and one’s own values. Those values may be different from those of others, but they are a fundamental part of our make-up. It’s a good exercise to think every so often, maybe as you’re preparing for the day, or perhaps as it’s coming towards night and time to retire, about what you really believe in and what you hold to in terms of values. I’ll go into this in more detail in a future session, but the key thing here is knowing what your values are, and living them. That’s what gives us authenticity.
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Author: Caroline Stockmann, Chief Executive, ACT. Article adapted from the strategic insights podcast