What can authentic leadership do for your organisation?

Authentic leaders are essential to running a successful, ethical business. They promote relationships built on confidence and trust and lead to a happier, more committed and productive team.

What is an authentic leader?

Authentic leaders have a healthy alignment between values, beliefs and behaviours. This alignment motivates and energises leaders in their life at work and at home.

Authentic leaders

Do their job without compromising their values or personality
Are energised by their work and less likely to become depleted or burnt out
Perform better, score more highly on employee engagement, job satisfaction and overall wellbeing

Some negative and toxic behaviours are often wrongly branded as authenticity. These include:

Acting without filters, political savvy or good judgement
Creating a false image of yourself
Being rigid and unwilling to change your personal style and self-image
Sticking with what feels safe

How to become a more authentic leader

If you’d like to become a more authentic leader, here are five steps you can take.

Get clear on what’s important to you, your values, likes and dislikes
Compare your values with your behaviours: how aligned are they?
Make changes to realign your values and behaviours, getting help if you need to
Work on how people see you as a leader: ask opinions and make adjustments
Flex your leadership style based on how the world actually is as well as how you want it to be

How to hire more authentic leaders

To build a strong company you need authentic leaders with similar values to your organisation. Here’s how to find them:

Talk about shared company values in your job descriptions
Describe behaviours and results you’d like to see in the ideal candidate
Ask values-based interview questions

To talk to us about developing authentic leadership in your organisation, get in touch.