Category: Authentic Leadership

Own yourself

I’ve had a busy time the last few weeks and over the next few weeks I have friends staying, the Authentic Leadership Course, my folks up, then Uncle Stan, more programmes and workshop and whew, the year will be almost done.

It could be the reflective mood that Dire Straights Telegraph Road is giving me, but I felt a sense of ownership tonight. Ownership of my own spacetime. It might also be something to do with having a productive afternoon at work, some more opportunities and seeing Tim enjoying his 18th birthday.

It’s not selfish to own yourself. In fact I say it’s selfish not to. If you don’t take care and grow yourself through reflection, enjoying your own thoughts and contemplating what has gone and what is to come (is that reflection!?) then you’re not caring for yourself. That’s selfish as you’re not going to be much good for anyone in your world.

According to psychometric testing and my own work I’m an extrovert. I get my energy from the external world. But I get lots from my internal world – the place where it is just me in my own spacetime.

We notice authentic leadership coming from within. It has that quality of depth and meaning that brings out the best in each of us. The authentic leader has ownership of self. When did you last renew it?

Stephen

Marketing a Marathon

At 34 kilometres I stopped at Okahu Bay for three drinks and my last carbo squeezie. The ‘Why?’ question. It always comes up at some point on a marathon, and this time, having been prescribed steroids to get me through a throat infection and the run, it was later than I thought. People refer to it as the wall. It’s real and it hurts. But 34 soon becomes 37 and suddenly it’s 40 and I’m smok’n to the finish line. I remembered to tell a few people “Marathons hurt”.  To be honest, I’ve kinda forgotten already.

We’ve got our 4th Authentic Leadership Course coming up and we’re near the finish line – or is that the starting line? Feels a bit like the finish line as the intensive marketing comes to a close and we can get ready for the really good stuff.  It will have been a year almost to the day since our first course and each one is special. They are big weeks and the start of a journey for the participants.

I enjoy marketing strategy – aligning the products, the pricing, the promotion, our processes and so on with our authenticity. Selling I’m not so keen on, I prefer buying! Well someone buying anyway. I really enjoy meeting our clients on the way – I consider myself fortunate to get the rich texture of life from so many really neat people up and down the country. But sometimes promoting a course is hard.

Just like 34 ks on the Auckland Marathon.  Next year I’ll have my permanent unique number for having completed five Auckland marathons. I’ll have it for life. Not sure how many punters sign up for the first one thinking “now that’s one hell of a good incentive to start!”. Just like I’m not sure that all our clients start off on the Authentic Leadership Course thinking that a year down the track they will be noticing the impact. But they have and they do. We’ll have participants from the previous courses check in on this anniversary course and we’ll find out how their journey in authenticity is going.

Bet they’ve hit the wall occasionally, some even on the course. But they’ll have their permanent unique number.

Like we all do. Can’t be copied. You’ve got it for life. But you need to find it, your authenticiy.  And that can take work. Will you ask why? Maybe, but once you’re up and running again, you’ll never look back. Any hurt will be subsumed by delight.

Can you market that do you reckon?

Stephen

ps check out one of my photos on the promotional banner for our course on www.aut.ac.nz

What standard should we apply?

The Indian representative defending the cleanliness of the Commonwealth Games accommodation venues questioned: “is it my standard?, your standard? or their standard?  If it’s true that the workers have been using the toilets despite the plumbing not being connected, you can take a wild guess about the standard. Much further south Christchurch City manager  Mark Christison was close to tears when trying to explain to Avonside residents today that it might take a year for sewage systems to be restored, prompting one resident to declare that New Delhi was looking like a pretty good option.

David Garret is apparently going to talk about the ructions within the ACT party.  Why? When he was 26 he fraudulently obtained a passport and later, when he was middle-aged, lied to the court that he had no previous convictions.  This was when he was lawyer to the Sensible Sentencing Trust, an organisation which promotes ruthless standards of accountability for convicted criminals.  Sometimes that can just be vindictive. A bit like revealing all the behind the scenes within ACT. Like we didn’t know. Vindictively trying to take others down, because he got caught breaching his own publicly stated standards, so blatantly.

It never fails to amaze me that some politicians feel the need to lash out at all in sundry when caught out. They don’t seem to get that it’s the covering up causes the strife. Remember “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!”

Bad luck for David Garret that the plumbing didn’t wash away his crime and he’s had to adjust his standards.  Still he must feel relief to have it all out in the open. The healing can begin.

Leader of the day for me goes to the unsuspecting Christchurch City manager Mark Christison who showed his authenticity by breaking down in front of the citizens of Avonside. Not because he broke down, but because he showed empathy to his fellow citizens. He understood their standards and shared their pain. Such leadership gets things done. Bet you it does. And we’ll never know what when on back at the Council office. It won’t matter.

How do you appear?

A lot of commentary I read about so-called leadership makes reference to leaders appearing genuine, or coming across as sincere or expressing sorrow.

Well, yeah that’s good on a Sunday read waiting for the takeaway Latte but am I the only one that sees this for what it is?  If you’re being being coached to appear sincere or to look like you’re interested stop and ask yourself wtf?

If you ever hear me say “I apologise” call me on it. If I apologise, then I will say “I’m sorry”. I digress for a moment, but when a public official apologises but doesn’t say sorry, it’s not as inauthentic as you might think. Actually it’s authentic, but they’re probably not sorry. If you’re sorry, you say it, you don’t describe your state.

So in coaching leaders by suggesting that they appear remorseful when things go wrong, or genuine when dealing with customers, without putting too fine a point on it, crap.

That’s superficial, pretend rubbish.

You either are remorseful, or genuine (which might be not sorry!) or you’re not.

You will appear as you are. That’s called authentic leadership.