Authentic Leadership Might Be the Single Most Important Factor for Agility
For an organization, the cornerstone of adaptability is to develop decentralized and autonomous teams. For such teams to emerge, there has to be (among others) trust and empowerment so that the decision-making is placed as close as possible to the source and to the effect of change.
As it happens, the effectiveness of a leader to create, develop and lead such teams is directly related to the values and skills of authentic leadership.
« Authentic leadership is way more than just "being yourself »
Many people hold the oversimplified notion that being an authentic leader is mostly about being yourself, saying what you think and doing what you say. Well, I'm sure you can easily think about leaders who fit this description and yet do not succeed to create trust and honest relationships. Obviously, there is more to it.
To better understand authentic leadership behaviors in real life, I suggest you watch this 6-minute video of the story of Glenn Maul.
Story highlights:
Facing a crisis situation, Glenn shows courage when he makes a tough decision that will put himself in a tough spot
Glenn gets to lead a team who has no respect for him at the beginning. Instead of confronting or blaming his team, he understands their point of view, doesn’t judge them, and gains their respect by putting himself on the line for the team’s success
Glenn opens himself to his team, showing vulnerability, which earns him the team’s trust
In the end, Glenn, the team, and the company are better of.
In this story we discover four key skills of an authentic leader, and their associated behaviors.
Self-awareness
Empathy
Courage, including the courage to show vulnerability
Selflessness (which is more a value than a skill)
Why is authentic leadership so important for Agility?
Some leadership styles are more supportive to agility than others. For example, servant-leadership, transformational leadership and transversal management come to mind. Authentic leaderships skills and value, such as salf-awareness and managerial courage, act as a foundation for these more elaborate styles of leadership. In other words, you simply can't become a servant- or transformational leader without becoming first an authentic leader.
Can authentic leadership be learned?
It is true that personality plays a role, but the good news is that, essentially, authentic leadership can be learned. As usual, beyond the basic concepts, the best way to learn it is to practice it. Techniques that can help develop authentic leadership include mindfulness, powerful questions and trying management hacks such as the Jester (which I describe here). Challenge yourself by trying new practices!
Connect with Bruno Collet on LinkedIn.
Bruno Collet advises and coaches leaders to develop the individual and organizational capability to anticipate and react to changes better and faster. In one word: Agility. His approach relies on action-learning with concrete practices, skills and behaviors. Bruno Collet executed top-level missions with several organizations internationally. He is also a recognized speaker, author and is accredited ICAgile instructor. Bruno Collet holds an MBA, MSc., as well as several certifications such as PMP, PMI-ACP, ICP-LEA (Leading with Agility), ICP-ORG (Adaptive Organization), ICP-ENT (Enterprise Coaching) and ICP-AHR (Agile Human Resources).