Allan Cox Blog www.allancox.com


AUTHENTICITY

What the best leaders think about today is authenticity. Not how to express it, but how to reclaim it and nurture it to fill out their own skin. Authenticity carries a charisma all its own, not swashbuckling, but solid, and it wears well with the flow of unpredictable events.

During the past generation, executives stopped believing that order and hierarchy were the by-words for managing their organizations well. Instead of relying on such stability, they moved to its opposite. They concluded that certainty of success lay in understanding chaos theory and mandating transformation in their organizations. This new paradigm was foreshadowed by the publication in 1980 of Peter Drucker’s Managing in Turbulent Times.

Where are you on this continuum? There is plenty of value at both extremes, but you’ll multiply your value and leverage tenfold when you plant your feet on the ground between them. Work life is certainly not subject to complete control, but neither is it chaos. It’s flow. Flow is natural and where you’ll find your authenticity. That’s where you can benefit from what Arnold Beisser called the paradoxical theory of change: “Change occurs when we become who are, not when we try to become who we’re not.” This kind of change is flow and available to both individuals and their organizations.

Today’s model isn’t the leader who makes things happen, but the one who lets them happen. Leaders who inspire us are those who shed their attachments to old habits and outworn “convictions.” Such attachments include shallow slogans, biases, blaming others, complaints of circumstance, chasing fads, denying failure, faith in consensus, fake roles, false goals, over-reliance on strategic planning and the pretense of vision as clairvoyance.

Today’s leader courageously releases his most addictive attachment: the illusion of control. Control is the tonic misguided executives seek at both extremes. On the other hand, authenticity blossoms in the leader who completes that longest journey from the rational mind to the intuitive heart and soul, and then comes halfway back.

Today’s most effective leaders are candid with themselves and seek power over the person they see in the mirror. That’s the hardest power of all to achieve. When they have that kind of power, they don’t need power over others. They won’t delude themselves with willfulness but consent to the way things are and go from there. They’re more prepared to see things unfold. This isn’t passivity nor resignation, but a humbled, energized leadership bent on catching the drift of a Creative Universe that “wants beautiful things to happen.” This is leadership that grasps vision as understanding what is rather than mouthing good intentions, and seeks its appropriate place in an inclusive, emerging drama.

Leaders like this listen to their inner voices and those of their associates as they deal with events and tasks. They are, in deed, intuitive. Intuition cannot thrive in an environment that lacks authenticity. Many people unwittingly attempt this mismatch. When they do, they waste their time, and that of their associates, researching the problem instead of the solution.

By virtue of their detachments, there’s a letting go to such authentic leaders. They’re known for resourcefulness born of resilience, and they treat failure—their own as well as others—as learning. They’re the last to boast of perfection for themselves or expect it elsewhere. They’re not hurriers or worriers. Because they feel partially, not wholly, responsible for outcomes, they share their burdens and don’t force things. Yet they’re marked by Destiny more than many self-declared heroes, and such Destiny weaves ties that bind.

These are people to whom we’ll give our trust in the modern era’s alluring and sometimes frightful transitions. We know they’re worthy of it. We can see it in their eyes.

THOUGHT STARTERS/COMMENTS:

1. What does the statement "Authenticity carries a charisma all its own" suggest to you? Do you agree or disagree?

2. What do you see as the relationship between flow and your own authenticity? Deep? Some? None at all?

3. How confortable are you with the idea of "letting it happen" rather than "making it happen"?
When? Where? Not comfortable at all?

4. How much do your head and heart "do business" with each other? Not enough? Pretty balanced? Not a concept that resonates for me?

5. What do you make out of my assertion that intuition cannot thrive where authenticity is in short supply? Agree? Nonsense? Irrelevant to getting desired results?

6. What do you hold on to that you might let go of?

All the best/Allan