Employee Investment

Why Invest in Your Employees?

So the economy is doing okay.  It’s booming for some and busting for many others.  Whatever your company is doing, booming, busting, or somewhere in between, investing in your employees is a must.

Employee Investment

Employee Investment

Now, I know you’ve seen the image above before, probably many times, and it’s cliche notion resonates with many professionals.  The thing is, is that it’s true.

One of our clients whose business is currently in a busting period, made the strategic decision to continue the investment in developing their leaders.  This was not without significant consideration and influence.  The argument  that ultimately won over the stakeholders was that very few to no other company in their industry would be continuing this investment in their leaders during this economic malaise and making this investment demonstrates their benevolence towards the employees. And, the evidence revealed itself shortly after the conversation when companies laid-off and terminated contracts of tens of thousands of employees.

Developing employees, managers, and leaders requires not just a financial investment, but an investment in time and effort. Organizations with successful employee and leadership development programs prepare their employees with lifelong skill sets.  They also demonstrate organizational trust and an eagerness to build loyal employees who thrive on growth and want to remain as members of the organization.

Studies have shown that companies with employee and leadership development programs are six times more likely to increase employee engagement, and have a 2.5 times higher productivity rate than organizations that have yet to implement a career development strategy (Scales, 2012).  They stay with the company because they want to, not solely because they need to.  When the economic fog rises in the near future, not only will our client have a ready workforce, but they will be engaged and positioned to scoop up the talent their competitors sent packing.

Another study conducted by the World at Work association shared that only 51% of employers feel confident about retention of top talent as the economy improves.  Rest assured that out client who made the investment in their leaders has a much higher level of confidence in their ability to retain their top talent and it’s directly related to the investment they’ve made while times weren’t so good.

One more thing, they made the Great Place to Work List too in their state.

If you’re in a similar position and unsure what do to next let us help you.  We put employee and leadership development systems in place with extraordinary development activities, leading towards exponential results.

EDGE – Where Leadership Begins,  is a Human Capital Consulting firm, focusing on three primary areas to help you achieve exponential growth.  We can serve you in many ways, however our focus is in the areas of Talent Management, Organizational Development, and Leadership Development.

For immediate inquiries, contact Dan Freschi at (414) 301-3343 or email info@edgebmc.com, and visit our website at www.whereleadershipbegins.com.

10 Factors for Talent Management & Succession Planning Success

I was recently asked what key factors are important for determining whether an organization’s talent management and succession planning practices are successful?  Here was my response:

  1. Build and have an actual strategy.  Include KPIs in the beginning. Stay focused on the strategy.
  2. Design TM and Succession practices that are congruent with the organization, its business strategy and its culture; and integrated with other human resource practices.
  3. Build in accountability at all levels of the organization for the ownership and execution of the practices. Especially with the CEO.
  4. Collaboration with key stakeholders is critical throughout the entire process.
  5. Right size and scale the tools and practices for the organization.  Leverage them vertically and laterally.
  6. Ensure it’s marketed and communicated to the organization as a leadership and management owned process and not just another HR initiative. Be as transparent at the organization allows.
  7. Maintain adherence to processes, rules, and definitions put in place for consistent application (ex. performance and potential).  But, remain agile to allow for variables out of your control.
  8. Classroom training is not always the answer. Development can take place in many ways.  Allow for failures and ensure learning happens from them.
  9. Have an entry and exit strategy for the talent pools you create.
  10. Build a talent mindset throughout the organization. Everyone is a talent manager. Everyone is responsible for their own development and direction they want to go.

What are your thoughts?  What would you add?  

For the Love of Feedback

Those that know me well, know that I am a huge fan of feedback. I love feedback of all kinds and constantly ask for it to get better and make changes to how I approach things, train others, speak, teach, etcetera. My colleagues at a previous employer even called me the Feedback King.

Yellow Card

ROTC Yellow Card – Click to see larger

I believe my love of feedback started when I was developing in ROTC to be an Army Officer. In ROTC we had to complete the Cadet Self-Assessment Reports or yellow cards. These yellow cards were required after every mission and assignment when we were in some form of a leadership role. Yellow cards were a summary of our performance while in the leadership role and was detailed using the well-known STAR model, where we would describe the Situation, assigned Task, the Actions taken, and the Results.

 

Blue Card

ROTC Blue Card – Click to see larger

At the same time the student cadre or leader would complete a blue card called the Leadership Assessment Report. This report was where they rated behavior actually observed and recorded their counseling, and would measure certain attributes, skills, and actions.

We would then meet for a quick counseling session to compare notes and discuss my performance. The discussions focused on things I did well and where I needed to improve, along with actions I planned to take to sustain or change the behavior.

As a cadet and as student cadre I experienced both sides of giving and receiving feedback. This practice, however, did not end with my commissioning. This practice of feedback continued through my time in all my professional military schools. Whether it was at the Infantry School or at the Combined Logistics Captains Career School doing peer evaluations through leading soldiers, teams, and units on active duty with counseling, evaluation reports, and pulse and climate surveys. Feedback was a constant and always encouraged.  I encouraged it despite rank and protocol, as long as it was done respectfully and with the proper intent.

Another powerful means of giving and receiving feedback that I still find extremely valuable today is the After Action Review or AAR.  The Army training circular shares that:

The AAR is a professional discussion of an event, focused on performance standards, that enables soldiers to discover for themselves what happened,why it happened, and how to sustain strengths and improve on weaknesses. It is a tool leaders and units can use to get maximum benefit from every mission or task.

The AAR in a corporate or professional setting can be executed in the same way, as a structured debrief process for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better by the individuals involved and those responsible for the project , event, or situation. 

Take a look at the link provided below for more info on how to conduct an AAR.

You’ve probably already seen these, but here are some tips I’ve learned over the years about feedback:

  • Never, ever give someone harsh, critical, developmental feedback in the presence of others. This can be extremely embarrassing to the person receiving the feedback.  Find the right time and place to pull them aside in private.
  • Only give feedback on the things that you heard someone say or behaviors you saw someone do.  Giving feedback from a 3rd party, on something you did not hear or see can be a slippery slope and deteriorate trust.
  • Make feedback a dialogue.  Avoid making assumptions. Make sure to check your information and biases, giving the benefit of the doubt to the other person.
  • Allow yourself to be emotional.  Deal with your emotions, allow yourself some time to be mad, angry, sad, upset, …., and then comeback and deliver the feedback.  Use that time to also prepare, write down what you want to say, focusing on what the things said or done, and as a result how they made you feel and the outcome.
  • Be specific.  Vague feedback might seem insincere or calculating.  Saying “I don’t remember exactly what you said, but it … ” diminishes its impact severely.
  • Be Timely.  Give feedback, both positive and developmental feedback, immediately but no more than 5 days after it happens.  Don’t put it off as not urgent if it’s good. Don’t avoid it or put it off if it’s not so good.
  • Avoid the feedback sandwich, “you did great, but here’s what you did wrong, but I thought you did great”.  You can give both positive and developmental feedback in the same conversation, however, you have to finish one type of feedback before giving the other.  In other words, get through the STAR for positive or developmental before giving the other.
  • Always ask for feedback, for everything you do.  Asking for feedback as a leader builds a culture that asking for feedback is encouraged and more than likely when you give it will be also be received well.
  • When you ask for it, do something with it.  Change your behavior and/or change your own self-perception.  Asking for it without doing something with it is disrespectful and can lead to a lack of trust.
  • Listen.  Ask questions. Admit your mistakes.  Listen to learn how they perceived your behavior, ask questions for clarification and examples, admit your mistakes.

Delivering feedback is a skill that must be fostered and developed.  Delivering positive feedback is easy, yet too many leaders don’t do a very good job at it.  Developmental feedback is not always easy to deliver, accept it.  Your best bet will be to find someone to rehearse if it’s going to be emotional.

Early in my career I learned the valuable lessons and gifts of feedback.  Feedback can be one of the most powerful tools for anyone to learn how to use.  It might be clunky at first, but It’s never too late.

 

 

References:

ROTC Blue Card

ROTC Yellow Card

TC 25-20: A LEADER’S GUIDE TO AFTER-ACTION REVIEWS


 

EDGE- Where Leadership Begins is a Human Capital Consulting firm, focusing on three primary areas to help you achieve exponential growth.  We can serve you in many ways, however our focus is in the areas of Talent Management, Organizational Development, and Leadership Development.

For more information, visit our website www.whereleadershipbegins.com or contact us at 414-301-3343.

 

Assumptions

A recent situation where I was the target of an assumption has compelled me to write about it.

When I was about 12 years old my father taught me when I assume I make an ass|u|me. Many of you may have seen this before or been taught it by one of the adults in your life. This lesson was one of the many leadership lessons he taught me.

What does it mean to assume in the case of my father’s lesson? My dad’s lesson taught me when I make an assumption (noun) it’s an act of arrogance, pretention, where one takes a fact or statement and thinks it’s true or probably true without knowing that it was true.

In the context of the lesson, I believe he was telling me to become aware of my perceptions, connections, relationships, and preference to the statement/situation and make sure they do not blur, shade, or misguide me from being able to see something from another’s perspective. To give the benefit of the doubt.

Interestingly, an antonym for assumption is humility.

One my core tenants both personally and professionally is to be authentic and transparent. Transparency is built into my business model and is a foundation of how I consult. When exercised and leveraged properly, both transparency and authenticity can build trust.

And, while transparency and authenticity might be exactly what is needed, when someone is dealing with a loss, works in a toxic environment, or has had their trust violated repeatedly (to mention a few), much more care around demonstrating and explaining what one is doing or not doing is absolutely required and necessary.

The good news is that we worked it out through synergistic conversations and feedback, and on the path to rebuilding our relationship.

Assumptions.

References:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assumption

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assume

With all the DISC assessments, which one do you choose?

The original of course! Capital D, little “i”, capital S and C.

10997194_10153195037719309_5396767266025743694_o“Increased precision through adaptive testing makes this the best DiSC on the market. Don’t settle for imitations!”

The original DiSC assessment (now called Everything DiSC) developed by Dr. William Marston, a physiological psychologist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, studied how an individual perceived him or herself in a situation, the resulting emotions of the perception, and the likely subsequent behavior.

His work focused on directly observable and measurable psychological phenomena. He was interested in using practical explanations to help people understand and manage their experiences and relationships.

His 1928 book, Emotions of Normal People, Marston explains his theory on how normal human emotions lead to behavioral differences among groups of people and how a person’s behavior might change over time.

Marston’s model has two critical dimensions:

  1. the situation is perceived as either favorable or unfavorable
  2. the individual perceives him or herself as more or less powerful than the situation

Marston theorized that the behavioral expression of emotions could be categorized into four primary types, stemming from the person’s perceptions of self in relationship to his or her situation. These four types were labeled by Marston as Dominance (D), Inducement (I), Submission (S), and Compliance (C).

It wasn’t until Walter V. Clarke, an industrial psychologist, used Marston’s Theory to be the first person to build an assessment instrument. In 1956 he published the Activity Vector Analysis, a checklist of adjectives which asked people to mark descriptors they identified as true of themselves. The tool, used by Clarke since 1948, was intended for personnel selection by businesses. The four factors in his data (aggressive, sociable, stable and avoidant) were based on Marston’s model.

About 10 years later, Walter Clarke Associates developed a new version of this instrument for John Cleaver. It was cleverly called Self Discription. Instead of using a checklist, this test forced respondents to choose between two or more terms. Factor analysis of this assessment added to the support of a DISC-based instrument.

Since then is has gone through several updates and modifications, while remaining true to its original founder. In the 1970’s it was called Personal Profile System® (PPS), then in the 1990s the PPS 2800, which became known as DiSC Classic. In 2003, Inscape Publishing pushed the envelope further and developed an online version, DiSC Classic 2.0, which provided a richer feedback report and has been the standard bearer until 2007.

The Everything DiSC® product family, launched by Inscape Publishing in 2007, and now a brand of Wiley since 2013, was created to make the DiSC assessment even more valuable to its users. They did this by including the improved measurement technology of adaptive testing, making the tool more precise than ever. The increased precision and higher level of personalization result in a better experience for Everything DiSC users.

Everything DiSC harnesses the power of the third generation of the DiSC® model—one of the most widely used, scientifically-based approaches to assessing personality and developing critical interpersonal business skills. With programs for leadership, sales, management, and workplace development, Everything DiSC programs are in-depth, specialized, and easily customizable to fit clients’ needs.

EDGE Business Management Consulting, LLC an Authorized Partner for Everything DiSC, is a Human Capital Consulting firm, focusing on three primary areas to help you achieve exponential growth. We can serve you in many ways, however our focus is in the areas of Talent Management, Organizational Development, and Leadership Development.

DiSC vs. MBTI – Fill out the form and you’ll be given immediate access to information.

For more information, visit our website www.edgebmc.com or contact us at 414-301-3343.

How Do You Moveo Moti Motum? (Influence)

In case you’re not up on your Latin “Moveo Moti Motum” is Latin for Influence. When searched on Google, Influence garners over 135 million results. So, what really is influence? When Moveo Moti Motum is translated from Latin is literally means to move, arouse, affect, and influence. Using one of my favorite dictionary sites, Influence is defined as

the power to change or affect someone or something : the power to cause changes without directly forcing them to happen : a person or thing that affects someone or something in an important way : the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways

This definition is the same for negative as well as positive influence, both can be equally powerful. The level of influence you have comes from a variety of sources. How much expertise you have, how credible your position and objectives are, how visible you are, and how you align your objectives with the organization all serve to increase your ability to have a positive influence on others.

In the workplace, at home, at school, whenever we are communicating and interacting with other humans, we need to be able accomplish our goals. This need requires a focus on synergy and a savvy influence ability because you may or may not be in a position to exercise pure power or authority in the situation.

And, even if you are in a position of power or authority, consider what Dwight D. Eisenhower the 34th President of the United States and a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II says about influencing others:

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.

This holds true for everyone, including parents, coaches, neighbors, it’s not just leaders.

So, influence can equal leadership. Renowned author and speaker John C. Maxwell believes:

Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.

If you think about it we rely on influence to get everything we do, done. Whether it is getting approval for spending beyond your budget, placing items onto an agenda for the next executive meeting, or sharing the importance of practice with your kids, your ability to influence matters.

A key component and the first step to improving your ability to influence starts with a thorough understanding of yourself, your interpersonal, presentation, communication and assertiveness abilities. Consider taking one of the best assessments on the market today, Everything DiSC to gauge where you are with your influence abilities. With the market full of DISC type assessments, this is the original and most useful in multiple aspects of life and business.

At the end of the day learning to adapt your personal style when you become aware of the effect you are having on other people, while still being true to yourself is a vital contributor to building your influence ability.

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Consider the following bestselling resources as you seek out developing the “how to” of your influence ability.

In his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion the 6 Principles that help to get influence over people, Dr. Robert Cialdini shares the results from his deep research about the various strategies held by people to have influence over their peers. The 6 Principles of Influence/Persuasion that Dr. Cialdini share are: Reciprocity, Scarcity/rarity, Commitment & consistency, Consensus/Social proof, Authority, and Liking.

Similarly, in their book Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, authors Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson , David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler take us on a journey to discover vital behaviors we want to change, show us how to convince ourselves and others to change minds, and truly master the 6 sources of influence. Those include Personal motivation, Personal ability, Social motivation, Social ability, Structural motivation, and Structural ability.

In the book, Persuasion: The art of influencing people, author James Borg shares that, empathy and sincerity, are the fundamental building blocks for successful persuasion. Empathy is the bedrock of communication – the ability to identify and understand the other person’s feelings, ideas and situation. Sincerity is essential for generating trust. Borg warns that no amount of learning about communication skills without the core virtues of empathy and sincerity will succeed in the longer term.

 

References

Borg, J. (2007). Persuasion: The art of influencing people. Harlow: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: Collins.

Patterson, K. (2008). Influencer: The power to change anything. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Need to Communicate Better? Focus on Synergy

The time we spend communicating is immense, whether it’s face-to-face, email, video, phone, social media, an individual or a networking group, a formal or an impromptu discussion, every interaction must produce results and accomplish its purposes efficiently, effectively and generate as much action as possible. The key to generating maximum action is to focus on generating synergy when we communicate.

Synergy is the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Simply put synergy means the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The relationship which the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself – the most empowering, unifying and exciting parts.

synergy chalkThe essence of synergy about valuing the mental, emotional, and psychological differences between people. The key to valuing these differences is to realize that all people see the world, not as it is, but as they are, commonly known as perception.

When focused on synergistic communication you are able to develop creative possibilities, including better solutions and services. If synergy isn’t achieved, even the effort will usually result in a better compromise.

Focusing on synergy enables us to be more participative rather than suppressive in our communication. Especially so when making decisions about how to achieve a goal or complete work, make it a habit to ask for others ideas. Be genuine and open to others ideas and their possibilities, build on them and use them.

Dr. Steven Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People shares that in Habit 6:

Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves.

When we focus on synergy in our communication we generate trust. High trust leads to high cooperation and communication. Leading to better results in many aspects including our business and personal relationships and balance sheets.

Let us show you how we develop synergy with our Syn-EDGE-y Communication Model.  Visit our website at www.edgebmc.com today.
synergy comm model.2

Leadership is Freak’n Hard

A guest blog post – by Bill Treasurer

A few years ago, while facilitating a leadership development workshop, I asked the CEO of a multi-billion dollar construction company to share a little known secret with the budding leaders in the room. He scratched his chin, waited a beat, and then said,

“Leadership is freak’n hard.”

Except he didn’t use the word freak’n.

There certainly is no shortage of leadership advice in the world, most of it peddled by consultants who have never actually been in a leadership role. Read any leadership blog today and you’re bound to get a bullet-pointed list of “just do this” advice, as if being a leader was as easy as a clicking on plug-and-play app.

The result of all this cheap advice is that leadership, as a concept, becomes attractive. If it’s easy, after all, and if a person can make more money in a leadership role, everyone should aim to be a leader. Were the cheap advice actually true, of course, there would be more actual leaders.

Construction Instruction

The truth about leadership, as the construction company CEO reminded us, is that being a leader is anything but easy. Here’s why:

  • It Takes Experience: You can read all the bullet points you want, but until you actually lead others, you won’t be a leader. Stop reading and start leading.
  • Your Job is Discomfort: Ginny Rometty, the CEO of IBM, put it best, “Growth and comfort don’t coexist.” Your job as a leader is to bring about growth through change. By definition, that requires you to make people uncomfortable.
  • Speed and Accuracy Don’t Mix: Decisiveness is a hallmark of leadership. Leaders need to render fast decisions, lest they become bottlenecks. Rarely will you have enough perfect information to make a perfect decision. Translation? Decisions come with risks.
  • You’ll Have a Bull’s-eye on Your Back: Oscar Wilde once said, “Whenever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.” Especially in America where independence is a virtue. Leadership requires a certain degree of control over the behavior of others. Yet what self-respecting person likes to be controlled?
  • It Takes Humble Confidence: If you get too big for your leadership britches, you’ll lose people’s loyalty in a heartbeat. But if you aren’t confident, you’ll be seen as weak. You’ll need to be simultaneously confident and humble.

Faced with the hard realities about leadership, the first decision an aspiring leader should make is whether they really want to lead. Here are a few questions to help you discern your answer:

  • What attracts you to the concept of leadership? Why do you want to lead?
  • On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 equating to “very thin” and 10 equating with “very thick”, how thick is your skin? When people second-guess your decisions, how upset are you likely to get?
  • How comfortable and fast are you when it comes to taking risks? What is your greatest failure and what did you learn from it?
  • What natural skills, talents, and abilities will make you a good leader? What skills, talents, and ability do you still need to develop?

The real attraction of serving in a leadership role isn’t the potential for making more money, or having people at your beck and call. The real attraction should be the positive difference you may be able to make through your leadership influence.

Whenever I ask seasoned leaders what they are most grateful for about being a leader, the most common answer is the chance to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s the leadership reward for all that freak’n hard work.

 

BTBill Treasurer is the Chief Encouragement Officer of Giant Leap Consulting and author of Leaders Open Doors, which focuses on how leaders create growth through opportunity. 100% of the book’s royalties are being donated to programs that support children with special needs. Bill is also the author of Courage Goes to Work, Right Risk, and Courageous Leadership, and has led courage-building workshops across the world for NASA, Accenture, CNN, PNC Bank, SPANX, Hugo Boss, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and many others. Contact Bill at btreasurer@giantleapconsulting.com, or on Twitter at @btreasurer.

 

Consensus versus Commitment

During a recent workshop I facilitated for a large team we started a discussion on the idea of consensus versus commitment. During the discussion the leader of the team pushed back on the differentiation of the two concepts. While the two words on the surface might seem similar, they are materially different in their definition.

Again, a visit to my favorite dictionary site (www.m-w.com) we learn the definitions are:

  • Consensus: a general agreement about something: an idea or opinion that is shared by all the people in a group
  • Commitment: a promise to do or give something: a promise to be loyal to someone or something: the attitude of someone who works very hard to do or support something

I do believe that consensus on its own can be a dangerous concept for organizations. In my experience all too often, consensus is not real, most especially in a business setting. Consensus that is not real or is false, feels like an attempt to make everyone happy through a decision that includes everyone’s input, offends no one and often has no weight because it has been compromised to death. False consensus is not having the conflict needed to hear everyone’s opinions and promoting a safe environment to do so. Instead, and all too often teammates just nod and go on.

When consensus comes about naturally it is wonderful because it can move people automatically to commitment, but generally, consensus is a way of ensuring mediocrity. Gaining commitment is going steps beyond consensus. Gaining commitment is about teammates buying in to a decision, idea, process, etc., precisely when they don’t naturally or want to agree. To make that happen a leader needs to promote conflict, an airing of opinions so  decisions can be made having factored in all of the various ideas, opinions, and feedback from their team.

 

When a team commits to decisions, processes, etc., they are doing so because they know how to embrace two separate but related concepts: buy-in and clarity.  Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, shares that buy-in is the achievement of honest emotional support and clarity is the removal of assumptions and ambiguity from a situation.

I really appreciate the image above because I think it illustrates the point well.  A fire captain might get consensus from his/her firefighters around the idea of how they need to fight a fire, but gains commitment to the decisions once they are made despite whose idea it was.  Even though there is the element of urgency involved in this analogy, is that not something that is frequently lacking in organizations?

Regardless if you are non-profit, church, business, or a governmental body gaining commitment can mean the difference between life and death of the organization.   Commitment to a decision drives action internally, while consensus promotes a broad external drive, and unless, as a leader, you micromanage and dictate every step, commitment ensures empowerment, accountability, and buy-in to achieve goals beyond your wildest dreams.

The Feeling of Authenticity

The feeling of authenticity is unlike any other.  Whether it is you demonstrating authenticity or someone is being completely authentic with you, the feeling is pure and exhilarating.  If we visit my favorite dictionary site again we learn that Authenticity is “real or genuine, not copied or false, true and accurate.”  I cherish the interactions and situations that allow me to be real, genuine, and true to myself. However, the idea of authenticity is as old as the Greek philosophy ‘to thine own self be true’.

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.” -Mary Sarton

It takes courage to be authentic. It takes courage to get to know yourself. In order to discover authenticity in yourself, it’s important to start with self-awareness, which must stand over and against the influence of pressure (social, work, family, etc.), and stand as a beacon for consistency.

Dr. Stephen Joseph suggests that we have two levels of authenticity.  Our first level he argues is our “outer authenticity – how well what we say and do matches what is really going on inside us”.  I call this your persona, or more simply the mask you wear.  Our second level is our “inner authenticity – how well we actually know ourselves and are aware of our inner states”.  I often refer to this as our character, your most authentic self.

I get it.  I’m not naive to the fact that sometimes we need to put on an act to simply get by, the old adage “fake till you make it”.  However, too many times organizations ask their leaders to be something other then their authentic self; Or realize too late that the leader’s authentic self is inappropriate for the role of leader because the leader thought the organization wanted something different.

“It was as if someone flashed a mirror at me at my absolute worst.
What I saw was horrifying, but it was also a great lesson.”  -Doug Baker Jr., Chairman and CEO, Ecolab

Being authentic matters a great deal to your organization, your employees, and the customers who are served by them. Faking it till you make it as a leader is bad business. For organizations to function effectively, the need for authentic leaders who encourage employees to perform at their best, step up, and experience the feeling of authentic leadership is greater than ever.

Avolio & Gardner (2005) suggest that authentic leadership promotes an environment in the workplace that is consistent and complimentary to that of emotional intelligence, insofar as authentic leaders are deeply aware of who they are, and in tune with their emotions, they inspire authentic feelings of hope, optimism, resiliency, and positive psychological capital in their followers. This environment undoubtedly leads to increased job performance and greater amounts of engagement, job satisfaction, loyalty, and retention of an organization’s employees.

The feeling of authenticity happens when leaders are not driven toward self-serving interests and instead motivated by a goal not about them but about the greater good. Leaders who understand the feeling of authenticity have the self-knowledge to understand their personal gifts and passions and commit to helping manifest and empower others’ gifts and passions to accomplish a shared goal to benefit others.

So how does a leader become more authentic and promote the feeling of authenticity?  Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, offers five dimensions of authentic leaders in his book Authentic Leadership, authentic leaders:

  1. Understand their purpose: This is the reason they move into leadership roles. Authentic leaders have a purpose to make a positive difference in the world by showing others the way and helping them reach their potential.
  2. Practice solid values: These define one’s character and help to build trust with others.
  3. Lead with heart: Demonstrate caring and compassion for others.
  4. Establish connected relationships: This is a basic leadership competency. Great leaders admit they cannot do it alone.
  5. Demonstrate self-discipline: Always adhere to values, which help build trust (the foundation for any relationship).

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” –Mohandas Gandhi

To be an authentic leader, you need to have the courage to get out of your own way, to be self-aware, and accept yourself for who you are. The feeling of authenticity is about being  real and genuine to yourself and to others. By closing the gap of your inner and outer authentic self you help grow trust in what you say and what you do, even when the going gets tough (which it always does) have the courage to stay true to your values.