BMA eBook - Manual / Resource - Page 45
Managing Authenticity
But it is not enough just to practice what
you preach. To get people to follow you, you
also have to get them to relate to you. So the
second challenge of authentic leadership is
finding common ground with the people you
seek to recruit as followers. This means you
will have to present different faces to different
audiences, a requirement that many people
find hard to square with authenticity. But, as
Shakespeare recognized long ago, “All the
world’s a stage…and one man in his time plays
many parts.” Such role playing doesn’t have to
be fake or insincere. That’s not to say it’s
easy—far from it. As we’ve pointed out, people
instinctively recognize fraudulent behavior. If
a leader is playing a role that isn’t a true expression of his authentic self, followers will
sooner or later feel like they’ve been tricked.
And once that impression is out there, it’s hard
for a leader to recover.
Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe explicitly recognizes that the very different roles he
plays as a leader must be true expressions of
his personality. The cover of one of Nestlé’s annual reports depicts him sitting in the Swiss
mountains wearing climbing clothes. But in
the pages of The Nestlé Leadership and Management Principles, he is dressed in a dark suit
and standing outside corporate headquarters.
As he explains, “I wanted to use the image of
the mountaineer because water and the environment are emotional issues for many people. But the photo is not artificial. That’s what I
wear on weekends. I’m a climber. In the mountaineering picture, it’s a human being talking.
In the [other picture], I am talking for the institution. The photographs are different, but they
both capture something essential about me.”
A long-successful music industry executive
we’ll call Dick is also a careful communicator
of his multiple selves. Dick is from the Caribbean, and on many occasions in the rough-andtumble of the music business, we have seen
him switch from corporate-speak to an island
patois liberally sprinkled with expletives. He is
absolutely at home in the cutthroat environment that recording artists and their agents operate in. But, at the same time, Dick’s parents
are affluent, well-established members of Caribbean society, and, on the occasions that require it, Dick can play up this aspect of himself
to create a rapport with the media moguls and
Establishing Your Authenticity
There’s no one right way to establish and manage your authenticity. But there are conscious steps you can take to help others perceive you as an
authentic leader. Some of these steps entail building up knowledge about your true self; some involve learning more about others.
Get to know yourself and your origins
better by:
Exploring your autobiography. Familiarize
yourself with your identity anchors—the people, places, and events that shaped you. Share
these discoveries with others who have had
similar experiences.
Returning to your roots. Take a holiday
with old friends. Spend time away from the
normal trappings of the office.
Avoiding comfort zones. Step out of your
routines, seek new adventures, and take some
risks.
Getting honest feedback. Ask for 360degree feedback from close colleagues,
friends, family, and so on.
harvard business review • december 2005
Get to know others better by:
Building a rich picture of your environment.
Don’t view others as one-dimensional; find out
about people’s backgrounds, biographies, families, and obsessions.
Removing barriers between yourself and
others. Selectively show a weakness or vulnerability that reveals your approachability to
your direct reports, assistants, secretaries, and
so on.
Empathizing passionately with your people. Care deeply about the work your people do.
Letting others know what’s unique (and
authentic) about them. Give people feedback
that acknowledges and validates their origins.
Connect to the organizational context
better by:
Getting the distance right. Be wary of creating the wrong first impressions. Use both your
sense of self and your understanding of your
origins to connect with, or to separate yourself
from, others.
Sharpening your social antennae. Seek
out foreign assignments and other experiences to help you detect the subtle social clues
that may spell the difference between your
success and failure in attracting followers.
Honoring deeply held values and social
mores. You are unlikely to make connections
by riding roughshod over other cultures’
strongly held beliefs.
Developing your resilience. You will inevitably experience setbacks when you expose
yourself to new contexts and cultures. Prepare
yourself by learning about and understanding
your own values.
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