Tag: authentic leadership

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.

What is your leadership theme?

Just over a year ago on 10 August 2009 I wrote my first blog Who is doing your dirty work. I had started contracting to AUT University a few months earlier to establish the Centre for Innovative Leadership and started the blog partly, at least, to gain a web presence for the Centre.

I came to enjoy blogging and combined some of my other interests – movies, photography and general commentary – into other related blogs.

But the leadership blog remains my core. I’ve learnt a lot about the technical aspects of putting stuff on the web including photographs, linking, doing automatic feeds into twitter and facebook and recently, video – which I believe will be the key to communication on the web going forward.  These words will become more limited.

Speaking of words, I’ve created an electronic book with my 56 (including this one) blogs and done some reflection about the themes within my work (sorry about all the headshots of me – it’s to do with the linking I did on LinkedIn and I can’t remove them … yet!). Writing about leadership has both consciously and unconsciously been a reflection of my own journey in the last year and the other nearly 47 years before that.

Which brings me to themes.

My conscious themes are about authenticity, vulnerability, having fun, photography, narcissism, anti-dogma, transparency. But what else comes through? What are my unconscious themes?

Looking through the blog book and doing some searches I also found a story embedded about my sons, my father and mother, holidays, Space, Evolution, Officials hiding, values, fake personal branding, religion, tolerance, running, forests, driving and disclosure.

No surprise then that that’s been my life this past year: my authentic leadership themes.

What are yours?

Stephen

People come first

Stephen Tindall visited us today. Talking to him I noticed a man who was both interesting and interested.

Stephen Drain, Jonathan Kirkpatrick, Alastair MacCormick, Kevin Pryor and Sir Stephen Tindall

He took the time to engage one-on-one with all of those present seeking to understand their businesses and aspirations.

Naturally, we were pleased to engage and spoke about our leadership development and focus on authenticity. That The Warehouse

are clients and Stephen Tindall is a graduate of AUT were added bonuses and he promised to read our materials.  Thank you.

Speaking to the wider group he said that when considering new companies for his investment company K1W1 to invest in, he looks at three aspects:

  • People
  • Technology
  • IP

In that order. People come first.

Not surprising for a great leader to think that.

After he had gone I expressed light-hearted disappointment to my team that no-one had addressed his as Sir Stephen, as he is. “Oh that’s right!”, declared Raewyn. Then we realised. This leader didn’t need a title. It was obvious.

Stephen

ps I did reassure the team that if they felt the need to say the sir before Stephen for the afternoon, then go for. After all, I don’t mind being interrupted.