Tag: authenticity

Authentic Technology

During a workshop we hosted for the EMA last week two people from my on-line world approached me: “you’re active on LinkedIn” and “I like your blogs”. That’s nice I thought and I recognised them too, from their on-line profiles. It can be a strange thing sometimes when you interact face-to-face with people you’ve only dealt with on-line. I have a friend who refuses to do anything communication on-line – even texts are pushing the boundaries: “If I want to communicate I’ll speak to you thanks”.

I’ve come to quite like the on-line world. There is no doubt at all that we can connect with more people (if that’s what you want of course), but significantly, a range of different people with insights and knowledge that you wouldn’t ordinarily have easy access to. So you’ll find me on Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, the Blog, LinkedIn, email, the CIL Website, my personal blog, Skype and I’m sure there’s more to come.

But I do challenge myself: is there an on-line person and a face-to-face person? Or are they one and the same. I hope you’d find me the same although there’s no proof-reading when you’re talking face-to-face so anything might come out, and often does!

And there’s a business reason for doing it. At the Leadership Centre I look after we need customers and so I need to keep communication as easy as I can.  I do try to keep the communication honest and authentic which sometimes means asking for business. If we didn’t, I’ll soon be looking for something else to pay the bills, which reflects what I heard Jonathan Ling, the CEO of Fletchers say once: I need managers that firstly, can make a profit. David Silverman in his “4 tips for writing better email” says you should:

  • ask for something – a call to action if you like
  • say it up front – the purpose should be clear
  • explain – don’t expect your readers to know what you know about your products or business
  • tell them what you think – don’t ask for ‘thoughts’ without giving yours

I think that these tips can be applied to more than just email, but can form a wider strategy of on-line engagement. I’m sure, if you’re a regular reader here you know that I’m doing plenty in the last category, but I intend to challenge myself about the first one. That’s authentic. We all need to prosper to be able to grow. So like my friend, I’ll speak, but in many different ways that will hopefully work for all of us.

Stephen

Hitting the spot

I had two significant conversations last week talking about authenticity and meaning in our work. We don’t always see the obvious. Someone who presents as confident, capable, even strategic can be as empty as can be. Yes, full of the right words, strategic linkages, linear flows and other deliberately important but shallow phrases. They might have an important job, looking after many people and a major division and a family who’s on the fast track to societal bliss.

And it may be perfect. But it may also be that you feel something is not congruent. As one of my colleagues said, “there’s nothing in here”, stabbing his heart. I remember being a cynical boy listening to stuff at a religious service about loving with all your heart and thinking “isn’t this just an organ that pumps blood!”.True, but we also now know that the wiring in our bodies is as big in our brains as it is in our gut. A gut feeling then perhaps, though that’s not the entire point of this.

If your organisation is only focussed on a limited range of number-driven KPIs then what? Happy investors? Possibly, but can the numbers only come from looking at the numbers? If you’re reading this then you probably don’t think so, but I challenge you to ask yourself if there aren’t times when the leadership and authenticity that drives business success is put to one side, because we really need to focus on the numbers. Maybe that always happens. If it’s true that corporate spending on leadership development slows during a recession, then that’s evidence enough I reckon. Say it again, spending on leadership development slows during a recession. That’s okay, but don’t pretend you think leadership development is a key driver of success. The manager with no heart has taken over. And a body without a heart is well, stuffed really, the brain will soon die along with all the other organs. And you won’t even know if you’re bleeding without a heart.

Enough of the metaphor! When I engage with an authentic person who has meaning in their life I know it and I can connect, whatever they do. Can you? Look around you at work. Who hits the spot?

Are you leading with something in the spot? That something is everything you are. A happy authentic space.

Stephen

Speechless

Can the leader be less than perfect? Yes you say, but what if they have a major impediment, like a stammer. King George VI did as you’ll see (if you didn’t know already) if you see the movie The King’s Speech. Sometimes you can’t “get another job” as suggested by his speech therapist before he knew what his job actually was.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable movie and it made me think. When you look through the leadership development businesses and blogs the author is typically portrayed as healthy, positive and portraying all the characteristics one might expect of a leader.  Expect?  What if the first thing that was brought to your attention was a stammer, say?

Could that work?  We talk about tolerance, diversity, empathy in leadership.

So could you lead up and be lead by someone you needed to help in a significant way? Maybe you do.

Are we truly tolerant of diversity? If leaders think they’re showing courage and vulnerability try being speechless with a stammer.  That’s a leader to follow.  If they can lead with that, what else could they do?

Stephen

Does being authentic mean you can do anything?

At the end of the year WordPress, who host this blog, send me some statistics about the site, including how many visitors I’ve had, how many blogs I wrote, what the most popular pages and posts were, and what searches people use to find their way to the site.

The most common searches were stephen drain, stephen drain aut, negative leadership, negative leadership traits, and rubik’s cube. I can understand the first two and last one gets searchers to me as I once wrote a blog mentioning the Rubik Cube (I wonder if I’m what they’re looking for? – all questions but no Rubik solution!). I’ve noticed during the year the regular,

Something so right - New Chum Beach, Coromandel

daily searches that people do for “negative leadership”. I don’t know who they are so I can’t ask.

But it is worth exploring in the context of authenticity. If I’m a negative prick, just because I am, then I’m authentic right? So carry on? If I lead by manipulation as that’s my natural way of doing things, authentic to me if you like, then that’s okay too isn’t it? What if I’m overly reflective and don’t participate in leadership meetings when I don’t feel like it? That’s my authentic self so why should I change?

All wrong I say. Sam Harris in his persuasive TED talk challenges a view that science can have no determination on morals. The same should be strongly asserted for leadership. As we have evolved as a species and developed a greater understanding of the human condition, leadership and happiness we are entitled to reach a scientific consensus on what is appropriate or not in leadership.

I know of leaders who use authenticity as an excuse for primitive behaviours like bullying, manipulation and silence. If nothing else my blog searchers tell me that there’s lots out there that some folk reckon is wrong. Negative.

Discovering and developing our authenticity can not be to the exclusion of growing and evolving ourselves. So if you’re a negative prick, don’t use authenticity as your excuse! Some things are just wrong. And some things are right.

Stephen