Authentic leadership in times of change – the first step that no one told you about

“Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently. ” – Lance Secretan

In the career of any business leader, there comes a time, when you get a new job role or responsibility, which is completely different from what you have been doing till that time and rudely pulls you out of your comfort zone. You’ve proven your self by performing brilliantly till now and people around you believe that you are capable of delivering on the impossible. You are THE MAN ( or WOMAN ) who is expected to see the ship in stormy waters to the shore. You step up from doing work that you have been brilliant at, to a level where you don’t really know what is going on? While you may secretly be thinking, “I have no clue what I am doing here”, blurting that out loud may not be in your best interest. While there is your ego and your image to take care of, more importantly the people around you are looking up to you. Your team expects you to guide them and your organisation is depending on you. Many organisations also implement 30 or 60 day work plans, that a new leader is supposed to deliver on.

While you may put on a brave front and pretend to know the answers your inner gremlin is shouting all kinds of ugly things in your ear ( You don’t know what you are doing? Are you good enough to handle this? What if you fail? ). If the gremlin is really nasty it might even say “Yeah right! Go ahead and goof up and face the embarrassment of people figuring you out for the imposter you are!!”

Sounds familiar??

So what do you do when you are in this zone?

Common advice would be to find a mentor, read up information and figure out what you want to do. All good advice and worth considering. But before you do anything, the first step to authentic leadership in this state of “not knowing” is to move from doing to being. So the question to ask yourself is ” Who do I want to be in this role?” and not “ What do I want to do in this role?”

When you are in the state of NOT KNOWING-2 The answer may sound something like: I want to be a leader who successfully leads this project to closure.

Dig deeper.

Look for the characteristics you want to be known for? A trust-worthy professional, an understanding and fair boss, a team player, a goal focussed leader?When you don’t know how to handle something who do you want to be? The person who pretends to be know-it-all and eventually figures it out or the one who finds the best person who can figure it out. When you are in a client centred crisis who do you want to be? The one who leads from the front and addressed the issue or the one who gets an expert to deal with it? Remember there is no right and wrong here. This is just you talking honestly to yourself. Build an image of who you want to be in different situations that will surround your new job. It is okay if you are still not sure of what some of those situations might be. Start with what you do know. Building a leadership image of yourself will give you clarity on what to do when these situations do come along.

When you are in the state of NOT KNOWING-2

The thing to watch for is not to replace “Who you want to be?” with “Who you should be?”. By making this mistake you will start working from the assumptions of the whole wide world. You will start looking to be the one that everyone approves of and start doubting your self. For your success it is important that you operate from your own authentic self rather than those defined by the world around you.

Once you have the image of you and your leadership the steps you will adopt to make it happen will become clearer. This image will also help you stay true to your authentic self and not fall into the traps of working to impress others or get their approval.

“When you are real in your music, people know it and they feel your authenticity.” – Wynonna Judd

So go ahead and start by asking yourself ” Who do you want to be?”