A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

Episode 14: What Is Authentic Leadership and How Do You Develop It?

• Jimmy Barber, James Lawther and Amanda Gilbert • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Welcome to the second episode of our monthly series on leadership.
 
 Our learning and development guru, Amanda Gilbert, joins us again, bringing much-needed sense and insights to the discussion.
 
 We explore what authentic leadership is in its different aspects and share stories and experiences we have of being authentic or not in some cases! Then, we discuss the value and impact authentic leadership has on others.
 
 Most importantly, we hear from Amanda about how you can develop your authentic leadership skill set and positively impact everyone around you!
 
 If you have any questions, comments, or experiences you want to share or would like to discuss how you can develop as an authentic leader, then get in touch - Jimmy@ajobdonewell.com or James@ajobdonewell.com

James:

hello, I'm James.

Jimmy:

Hi, I'm Jimmy.

James:

Welcome to A Job Done Well,

Jimmy:

the podcast about the world of work and how to improve the daily grind Everyone. Hi Today's episode is about authentic leadership. It's part of our leadership series. So we have got back on with us our esteemed learning and development guru, Amanda Gilbert. Hi Amanda.

Amanda:

Hi, have

Jimmy:

you been up to since you last joined us?

Amanda:

Last week I was in London, it's a while since I've been in London, but helping an amazing team who are newly forming. which was fascinating stuff, great

Jimmy:

Sounds exciting. Well, it's great to have you back. James, how have you been?

James:

back. Very good, thank you very much. I've got a question for you Amanda. Hmm. Do you like our theme music?

Amanda:

Oh crikey, put me in the middle of the why don't you?

Jimmy:

it for me for my birthday next

Amanda:

said it was expensive, right?

James:

It's for his 60th birthday. Right, so what can I tell you? Yeah, I do. I'm going to have a pop out. Traitors. So you've both been telling me how good Traitors

Jimmy:

is. Genius. Absolute genius TV.

Amanda:

Loved it.

James:

I started to watch it with my daughter. I must have managed. What a load of old drivel. What Amanda just said is when they're doing the bit at the end where they're all chatting and deciding who they're going to throw out, it's like a validation session. Who in their right mind wants to pay good money to watch a validation session? I've been through far too many of those in my life. Just dressed.

Amanda:

Clearly it resonated with you then. Yeah, anyway, got that

Jimmy:

but Trey is, in fairness, is a good subject to mention before we talk about authenticity and authentic leadership. Because the whole premise of the program is to lie and manipulate.

Amanda:

being

James:

so what are we talking about? Authentic

Jimmy:

Authentic leadership? Don't

James:

Not particularly sure. How's your week been

Jimmy:

your week So we're doing authentic leadership this week, leadership is such a key point to underpin performance and enjoyment of work, which is what this podcast is all about. And, you know, it was by popular demand. I think There was a number of bits of feedback around around authentic leadership as being a subject for us cover. Yeah,

James:

we've got two bits of feedback. The first bit was you can learn as much from poor leaders as good leaders,

Jimmy:

than the I think, I on that, James, what I've found is that it can be quite cathartic to see To work for a poor leader and actually feel that you're learning because at least you're getting something positive out of the experience, aren't you? This is how not to do

James:

Absolutely. And when you have a good leader, then actually it's a bit like water off a duck's back. You don't notice it so much. And then the other bit of feedback we got was it was the best episode ever. Amanda was fantastic. And I would tell you that I'm a bit worried about my job on this podcast, but between you and me, Amanda, the pay ain't that great. So I think I'm fairly set. nothing between us. Absolutely. So, go on then, Amanda. What have you got for us about leadership?

Amanda:

Well Well, actually, I was having a look at the CIPD, so the Institute of Personnel and Development website, and there's some research there, that goes to prove that old trope that people leave managers, not their jobs. When asked why workers left their last organisation,

James:

Yeah, I'm a little surprised it's only that low, to

Jimmy:

I suppose we are talking about people who have actually left their job. So really, that's the tip of the iceberg. There'll be a large percentage of the remaining people that are probably unhappy with their leader and not performing as well.

Amanda:

part of their engagement score.

Jimmy:

We're going to talk about authentic leadership. There's lots been written on the subject. So today we're going to explore what do we mean by authentic leadership? And importantly, how can you incorporate into your management toolkit?

James:

I started out as normal, and I got my dictionary out, I had a look to see what a definition of authentic was, so what does the dictionary us? So authentic means of undisputed origin and not a copy, genuine, made or done in the traditional or original way, or in a way that faithfully resembles an original, and based on facts, accurate or reliable. that we've been doing. be more inclusive and more authentic. But what's that got to do with the leadership there, Namantha? What's your take on

Amanda:

The things that the research showed and the model points to are a number of facets, which, which we've distilled into these things. One is self awareness. Yeah. So, authentic leaders are self aware. Transparency, objectivity, this was really interesting because it was about soliciting challenge and something we talked about in the last leadership session was that being accurate about yourself and perspective and then interestingly, this values led direction and approach, which I thought was fascinating. Does that align with what? What do you both think about when you

Jimmy:

Yeah, I think those, those examples of what an authentic leader might be showing, do resonate. if you are going to be transparent about your whole self and you're going to invite challenge in and, you're going to show people what your values are, you are going to have to be reasonably confident in being vulnerable around people. Because you're, Bring more of yourself to a particular situation, aren't you?

James:

It's really obvious when Somebody's being authentic. But likewise it's also really obvious when somebody is being inauthentic. And the number of times I've sat in discussions with people and they just sit there and they not and they look wise and they tow the company line when you think, well, you don't believe that at all. That's totally against what you say, what you would normally say. And that just reduces people's power,

Jimmy:

You do expect to see an alignment between, what people think and what they say and what they do, that, you know, whether you agree with it or not, at least that is being authentic, isn't it? Yeah.

James:

and I think It comes back to what we've said in the past about organizational purpose. If people are authentic, they seem to have some sort of external purpose, something that they value, something that they want to go for. Whereas if they are just, interested in making money or protecting that position, then it just shows demotivation. So, the one example that occurs to me is the whole Lucy Letby thing. Apparently after the first three deaths that Lucy Letby was involved with the consultant said, well, this nurse has been on the ward on all three occasions. But the managers just effectively hushed it up and moved away from it. They obviously didn't want that news getting out because clearly that would have been very bad for the hospital. But that for me is deeply inauthentic. They're not thinking about what they are there to do. They're just there protecting their

Jimmy:

their position. So alignment between purpose of what you're doing and how you behave as well.

James:

the values, Yeah. I

Jimmy:

if you're not authentic and true to yourself as a person, just how you behave naturally, I can't see how you'd be an authentic leader because of that point about being yourself and alignment.

Amanda:

It's almost like people, when they're being the leader, have taken So suddenly it becomes a performance, an act. And so as a leader I should say this, or I work in HR and so I must present in this way. But people see through that. And so to your point about vulnerability, I think it also requires bravery. Perhaps that's a different facet, a different side of the same coin. But to truly know self awareness, who you are, means knowing your strengths, it also knows what your limitations are. And then as a leader, doing the thing that I think is sometimes counterintuitive for leaders, which is to say, I don't know. Yeah. But the authentic leader goes down the route of, here's my point of view, I might be wrong, what do you think? And then being prepared to hear, which is in this objectivity part, something that's different to your own opinion, and then skilled enough to take it on board, maybe change your point

Jimmy:

some people think leadership is an act. I get out and on stage. But there still has to be some alignment between the purpose of what you're trying do, your organization, the values you have personally, and how you act. I certainly am more outgoing when I'm in a leadership position than when I'm not. But I'm still true to myself. You're still going to get the right version of me. And,

James:

all these facets are great, because they all tie together. The thing about self awareness and being true. Transparent, objectivity and values, all great stuff. However, the thing that is missing for me is this whole thing about purpose. So what is it that you as a leader are there for? What are you trying to achieve? And do people pony up to that? Will they get with you? Because if you're leading people, you want to lead them somewhere. One of my favorite examples of this is a chap called Paul Polman. He was the CEO of Unilever. It was a fairly big corporate boost. After he retired, he went on and got involved in the Business Forum for Sustainable Development. Which is all about global warming and how we avoid these things. And there is a video clip which I will put on the website. But, you listen to this guy talk, and you want to get behind him because he is so compelling. And you believe in him. So why do you need or being authentic?

Jimmy:

Yeah, I

Scarlett 2i2 USB-7:

think

Jimmy:

the um, the clip that you mentioned really shows, like you said, that. Deep belief in what he's talking about there are the facets that you talked about Amanda are absolutely spot on But you could throw a whole load of other things in there as well. Can't you?

Amanda:

There's just tons written about this, which is really interesting, But these seem to be consistent themes that came up over and over.

James:

But what's really interesting for me is you can tell, you can tell when someone's being inauthentic. You know, you just sit there and you think, you are talking absolute bobbins. And when you were sitting in front of a manager who was saying, we must go left. When you know he wants to go right, it just, it does nothing for motivation. It does nothing for morale and things just collapse around you. And that for me is why it's so important. And maybe it comes back to your point about it being an act.

Amanda:

Yeah. I read this on the Center for Creative Leadership which is being a phony is hard work. So actually when you're going against what you truly believe in, you're trying to pass yourself off as something else. Actually, your energy gets depleted. People see through it quite quickly. And then you're full of shit. Full of low shit. I thought you full of shit.

Jimmy:

You certainly are are are. I dunno if you're the same as me, but when I was young, you know, as a kid you used to tell lies and then you realize actually lying is hard. It's said to who. you can't remember what you said to who. So I found that as a person. It was better and easier just to be truthful because it's easier.

James:

There's some of the ideas behind authentic leadership, but why is it important? important?

Jimmy:

I think that authentic leaders, in general, get more out of their, their teams. They get a better performance, they unlock discretionary effort, people want to follow them, they want to work for them.

Amanda:

you know what? I think I've got an example that brings that to life. Years and years ago, I was working in an organisation which was about to close down its local branch network. So you can imagine the scene, the guy that had been the boss for years of this team of people, incentivising, encouraging them, bringing along their performance, was then tasked with making one of those dreadful announcements where you call everyone together. They've got a message. We're all sitting there in the room, ready for him to start. He has script in hand. And as he begins to speak, he just pauses for a moment, puts down the script and says, Yeah, this script being written by HR and legal presumably. Yeah, exactly that. Look everyone, I'm really sorry to tell you that we are closing down. with all the emotion and feeling in his voice about what that meant to him, but actually what it meant, recognition of what it meant to the people in the room, which was fascinating because in that moment, instead of kind of uproar and outrage and everyone sitting back, what everyone did was leaned in

James:

What were the consequences?

Amanda:

Would you know, the consequences were incredible. One, you had a team of people that continued to work really hard over the six months that they had waiting for the branch to close down. But standout moment for us was one of the, our brokers whose businesses were still going on of course, wanted this really huge group pensions quote, and the very team work that were about to be made redundant, were the people required to stay at night, late at night, which they did willingly to bring these quotes together, package them, and then drive them across to where the broker was, about 10 o'clock at night. Not the kind of behaviour that you expect typically from That's exactly right. Exactly

Jimmy:

because he was being transparent and acting in line with his values, in that example, he unlocked the discretionary effort. And got the job done there. You got any examples?

Scarlett 2i2 USB-8:

made suites. And the boss there was, he was a development guy. But he was just, you know important to him that we made the best suites. There was no messing about. Was it as good as it could be? If it wasn't as good as it could be, it's going in the skip and we'll try something else. And he would go through walls just over this, this point of principle. And because he was so clear, it just became important to everybody else. These suites had to be the best suites. And I know it sounds stupid, but when you're working in the environment, you take real pride in that. And you have people that pull all nighters, run factory trials, whatever it was. Just because you were making the best sweets and you were doing it for Lex, so

Jimmy:

really important, To Simile, you know, his values around being the best and making the best suites and he was very transparent about and that drove the the performance.

James:

The forward.

Jimmy:

when you I've got an to, just to counter your, your lot of brimming with positivity there.

James:

Enthusiasm, yeah.

Jimmy:

Sometimes equally, if you look at the flip side of things, you can learn. So I worked for an inauthentic leader at one point. There were lots of reasons why they were inauthentic, but one good example. was that I got feedback from them. And, you know, feedback's a gift, so it's always there to learn. But I got it, not direct from them, I got it from a person who was facilitating some strategy sessions with us. And they turned around to me and said, this is what your boss thinks about you. And it was about me challenging some of the ideas that we'd had in this strategy session. So I So, to me, that was really inauthentic, A, because, the person didn't tell me direct and B, they didn't like the challenge. They didn't want challenge, they just wanted people to say yes to their ideas. So, as a consequence, I didn't really feel comfortable and didn't feel safe and the upshot was, I ended up, I ended up leaving there. So I was in the 30 percent that you mentioned earlier, Amanda, about people that will leave companies because the leader

Scarlett 2i2 USB-8:

And oh, where do I start? One story about him. So he would come in and he would say, Oh, Oh, we're going to be fantastic. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. We're going to capture the market, da, da, da. And in the next breath, he'd be telling everybody about his 30, 000 watch, and how great his 30, 000 watch was, and how he couldn't really justify buying the 60, 000 watch. He got the nickname of the Watchman, and it became really clear that this bloke didn't give three boogers about anything else. Except nightmare to disconnect there in terms of, of trust. What can we believe from you?

Jimmy:

you? And I think that, you know, we worked with somebody in, in a previous organization with the three of us who did a similar thing. And we, we talk a lot about, you know, getting back to the floor so, this particular leader talked about the recent bonus that the organization had got. And, rather than saying wasn't, wasn't it great, didn't we, you did really well, we all got something. He talked about the Porsche that he'd bought out of the bonus. And he was, he was talking to front line people who, you know, they wouldn't earn a, they wouldn't earn the money to buy a Porsche in 10 years. There's another example, like your watchman, the Porsche man.

James:

Let's get political on this. Somebody who really winds me up is old Boris. Boris Johnson. Because you can't help but think, whenever you watch him he doesn't really have a political view on anything at all. His only political view is what's best for Boris. Now, maybe that's deeply unfair of me but that is the impression I get. And because that is the impression I get, then I know exactly how I'm going to behave around

Jimmy:

behave around it. So I'll take I took your watch and saw you at Porsche and now you've taken my Porsche and trumped me with a Boris but talking of

Amanda:

very good. See what you

Jimmy:

Donald Trump is probably going to become the most powerful man in the world again and, is he authentic?

James:

Now, personally, he doesn't chime with me at all in any way, shape, or form. But you see his rallies, and you see people jumping and screaming and shouting, and there are obviously a lot of people out there who believe what he says, but then on the other side of the coin, uh, he has just been sued

Jimmy:

There is, a double sided to this authenticity. you unlock discretionary effort. People want to work for you. But there are also some scary exceptions. of people who get into some extremely senior roles in organizations, or in the world in general, who couldn't be less authentic in the way we're defining it and talking about it, if you try But if you accept, being authentic leader is a good thing and is going to get better performance from our teams how do you go about getting an authentic leadership style?

James:

no, you've got to earn corn, Amanda, because he was so good last time, apparently. So there were decide at this talked about. Self awareness, transparency, being objective, and being really clear about your values. should I decide at this late stage that being an authentic leader is something that I aspire to be? How do I go about doing that? Or is the die cast and I'm a lost cause? No one's a lost cause even,

Jimmy:

can teach an old dog new tricks, James.

Amanda:

dog for you. very much. Self awareness. I mean, in the world of development, there are a ton of tools. Psychometric instruments, for example, which help you to formally explore. Who am I? What are my preferences? What are my behaviors? You'll have come across a ton of those. 360 feedback. Lots of 360 feedback tools exist as well for leaders. And then that process of self reflection as well, which you can do alone or you can reflect with the support of a coach too. you'll learn something about yourself too, that you didn't

Jimmy:

That's a great point that getting tools that help you structure how you look at yourself and asking people can give you extra stimulus rather than just what do I think about myself?

James:

So that's self awareness. What about three things? Transparency. being objective, and values.

Amanda:

Well let's look at objective for a minute if we may. So that's about, picking someone and asking them to give you a different perspective. Encourage them to share with you.

James:

I have been objective in the past. I remember Pete, if you're listening to this, a guy used to work with called Pete, saying to me, James, I've looked at the data 53 ways, can we accept it's not working yet? I was slow, but I did get objective. I

Jimmy:

I think that does require an element of confidence because you have to actually go out and ask for an opinion that you know may, contradict yours. I've always found it really useful to know the people around me who, if I wanted somebody to agree with me, I'd go to one person. Sometimes you just want somebody to say, Yes, Jimmy, you're right. Often, you need a different person. So knowing who are the people from you and going and seeking them out can be incredibly useful to giving you an alternate point of view,

Amanda:

incredibly useful to giving you an alternative point of view, but you do have to be reasonably confident to be able to do that. Also on the

Jimmy:

now let's deliberately take on a different mindset, give me some opposite

James:

little bit earlier, weren't we?

Jimmy:

Well, I think you have to be comfortable showing more vulnerability as you build that self-awareness, lean into it a little bit. It's okay to say if you don't know things, it's okay to ask for. You'll find that when you try those things out, A, you're showing transparency, but B, you'll get that positive reaction from people. People will accept that and will embrace it and will help you.

Amanda:

Yeah, that. Call to action there is for a little bit of bravery, but take small steps at a time and see how much you can take on board. And then

James:

Okay, and then the final one, values.

Amanda:

I like this one because there are tons of exercises once again that you can do around exploring values. Sometimes it's as simple as just grabbing a list. Looking down the list, picking the ones that actually, as an exercise deliberately and intentionally that resonate with you. And then if you pick top ten, go again. Now reduce it to five. So really what you draw out is what matters to you, what matters to you the most and then potentially ask other people to tell you when they see those values in or what shines out when you're interacting with them, what stands out, what values they would associate with you. On the subject of values, I've always found it very easy to discover what Jimmy's working with him, because you just sit there and watch what triggers him.

Jimmy:

It's a good point, James, I think just thinking back over the And I think, you What is it that you really don't like about traitors? And what does that

Amanda:

values? I wonder. Right

James:

There's something else, though, which I think needs touching on, which we haven't actually the environment that you're working in. Yeah. So if you understand your values and you understand what's important to you and you find yourself working. Can authentic leader when you're working in an environment where clearly what is important to you is not the same as what's the environment, for

Amanda:

Well, it's clearly easier. If you already fit, right? The organization that you choose to work for already aligns to your personal values. If it doesn't, then you've got some choice. You're at choice. Right? Am I going to stay? shall I go? Or

Jimmy:

said you did

James:

stay or should I go now?

Jimmy:

The clash, and you've always got a choice. We may not always like the choices that we've got, but we always have a choice. At some point, might find yourself in a situation where you can't be your authentic self, and then there is a choice, and I, as a number of people do, chose to go and work somewhere else.

James:

the opinion. If it's not right for you, get out. Life is too short.

Jimmy:

so to sum up, authentic leadership is important. It can drive improved engagement, motivation and enthusiasm and therefore get greater performance in your teams.

James:

a manager, being authentic is actually in many ways easier because being phony is hard work, but it does take some bravery. Are you prepared to show the world what you really got?

Amanda:

the facets we focused on today are self awareness, transparency, objectivity and soliciting challenge and being values led. But

Jimmy:

challenge, and being values

James:

And it's not a binary thing by any stretch of the imagination. There are plenty of leaders and senior executives out there who clearly are not authentic.

Amanda:

But the great news to sum up is, if you're interested, it can be developed.

Jimmy:

hope you've enjoyed today's episode. We'll be back next week with another episode and next month for the next in our leadership series. Amanda, you'll be joining us for that one again, will you?

Amanda:

Yes, thanks. And we're going to talk next month about the Curious Leader versus the Directive Leader, and what we make of that in terms of work performance

Jimmy:

in terms work performance. One Thanks everyone.

James:

See you next

Jimmy:

If you'd like to find out more about how James and I can help your business, then have a look at our website at ajobdonewell.Com.

People on this episode

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James Lawther

Co-host
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Jimmy Barber

Co-host
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Amanda Gilbert

Guest