In corporate environments that ask us to be professional, being yourself can feel tricky. I’ll share a client story that captures it. Karen’s job consisted primarily of presenting new concepts to clients for the adverting agency she worked at. Bubbly, energetic and very creative, Karen was great at the product part of her job. Where she struggled was in being authentic. Her agency was one of the largest in the industry and fairly corporate. She, on the other hand, was quirky, high energy and loved to capture new trends that a lot of people weren’t ready for. She felt torn. Would being her authentic, quirky self hurt her in this conservative environment? On the flip side, would being more corporate get her promoted, but make her feel like she’d “sold out” her hipster ways?
Together we created a process that allowed Karen to take risks in the right ways. Focusing on smaller, more cutting edge fashion clients, she developed presentations that let her quirkiness come through. And it worked. They loved her style! The small, innovative clients felt like someone in this big organization understood them. Karen was able to leverage these successes and increase her influence. Her supervisor gave her more autonomy and stood behind her more, and she gained the confidence to be herself with the larger more traditional clients. Over the next four years she got two promotions and ended up head of her department.
Being yourself is like a magnet. It’s also hard to do. Like for Karen, there are so many voices telling us to “be professional.” What’s the best way to navigate? First, give yourself permission to be just as you are. This means throwing out the “shoulds” about how or who you are supposed to be. Then, take time to really understand how your strengths impact your team, and your organization’s bottom line. As a next step, you can learn about the various behaviors that are exhibited by effective leaders (“The Leadership Challenge” is a great place to start). With that consider where to learn to stretch into the behaviors that don’t come as naturally to you, without seeing them as personal weaknesses. Being grounded in your authentic self, and stretching when you need to. That is authentic leadership.
I hope you are enjoying the fantastic spring weather!
Claire