A companion piece to the weekly Rise and Stride Newsletter, the Friday Footnote shares a practical tool to interrupt unhelpful patterns and generate change. User-friendly frameworks for growth, recalibration, and forward momentum.
I suggest authenticity as the core harmonic of your leadership song. Immediately, your fear creeps in.
If you raise your volume, will you still sound good?
Do you fear The Real You is out of tune with “professional” leadership? That fear rises from self-consciousness, recognizable by the shame it carries. Self-consciousness ties your authentic heart and soul behind your back. Self-awareness brings freedom.
Maybe your title on an org chart limits your vocal range.
What does it mean for a leader to be authentic? How does her authority as a leader “fit” with her contemplative, goofy, artistic, brainiac, or gothy aspects?
Can you be weirdly yourself AND a leader? Yes. Your authenticity is a gift to everyone you lead. Won’t people look? Yes. You’re modeling life as a whole human; it’s uncommon.
And self-awareness of appropriate limits is critical.
It’s all about humanity, humility, and integrity. ~ Debra Wilson, U.S. actor and comedian
The question is not whether to be authentic, but authentically what? Which aspects of self do you express and at what intensity?
Every leader is a musical composition: skills, knowledge, dispositions, stored trauma, quirks, preferences, and current life events. To which are you true?
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