Authenticity: Who Shows Up to Work?

Authenticity at work is a subject that has gained traction over the last few years. Do you feel like you’re authentically you when you’re at work? Does it matter? If you’re a business leader, the answer should be an emphatic “yes”. When leaders are true to themselves, embracing their own strengths, weaknesses, and owning their mistakes, it gives others permission to do the same.  It can change the norms of the workplace in a profound way, including increasing connection, belonging, and even productivity, suggests Vanessa Buote in a 2016 HBR article:

 “Being authentic improves productivity, increases performance and success, and allows employees to exert less energy and time censoring or hiding themselves. Indeed, employees often linked these themes: Spending less time and energy on self-monitoring freed up more time and energy for focusing on the task at hand.” 

Authenticity requires self-awareness and, ultimately, vulnerability. Business leaders can unlock authenticity in their organization’s culture, that’s true. But the quest for authenticity has to start with you, the business leader, first. We’ve developed some questions to ask yourself that can help you foster greater self-awareness and authenticity: 

1. What am I passionate about? 

Another way to ask this is, what do you care most about? Don’t look for the obvious answer. Yes, you may be passionate about your family and your business but try to go deeper. What really popped into your head first when you asked yourself that question? Make a list of the things you care deeply about. 

2. What talents do I have? 

What are you good at? Take stock of your skills and talents. List as many as you can. Perhaps these talents are a result of specialized training or things that you learned in school, or maybe they come from an accumulation of life experiences or natural talent. Write them all down. 

Self-awareness starts with being curious about your strengths and weaknesses. Asking yourself about your passions and talents offers an opportunity to examine what you’re interested in and separates it from what you’re good at. Don’t use the word should, here. In other words, don’t write down “entrepreneurship” as a passion just because you happen to be a business owner and you think you should be passionate about it. Similarly, don’t write down “business development” as a talent because you think that as a business leader you should be good at business development. Only write down what you are passionate about and what you are talented at. Remember, this is about fostering authenticity! 

3. Where do my passions and talents overlap? Where do they differ? 

If you’re passionate about HR and you are a talented HR professional, then your passions and talents overlap. What if they do not? What does it mean if you’re passion is entrepreneurship, but your talent is really in, say, engineering? If your passions and talents do not overlap, do they complement each other? Using the same example, does that passion for entrepreneurship complement your talent in engineering in some way? It’s easy to see how they complement one another if you own an engineering firm, but not as much if you own a chain of retail stores. 

4. As you examine your passions and talents, how do you feel? 

Do you feel good about the places where your passions and talents overlap? Do you have a sense of pride and accomplishment? Or, do negative feelings like regret or anxiety come up as you list your passions and talents? If you notice gaps between what you’re passionate about and what you’re good at, how does that make you feel? Dare to be honest with yourself and try not to judge your own feelings or talk yourself out of them. 

5. Lastly, does looking at your passions and talents motivate you to take action? 

As you look at your passions and talents, where they overlap and where they don’t, do you notice a desire to do something? Perhaps you’re remembering continuing education that you need to take. Maybe you are starting to realize that your passions don’t line up with chosen career path. If your passions and talents overlap, what can you do to deepen your skills and further your passion? If they do not, what can you do to close the gap between them? Rather than think about grand plans for change, think about the next discrete action that you can take. It might be signing up for a course or speaking with an experienced mentor. Maybe no actions come to mind right now. Something may come to you later or may occur to you as you talk with a friend or family member about this self-assessment. 

Authenticity and Vulnerability 

Do these questions make you feel uncomfortable? Self-examination might lead to thoughts and feelings you haven’t had in a while—or ever had—and those thoughts and feelings can leave you feeling vulnerable and anxious. It could be that you don’t typically make the time to think about yourself in this way, and that’s okay. We encourage you to honor that uncomfortable feeling and try more traditional means to increase your self-awareness and foster greater authenticity, instead: 

Take a personality assessment like the Myer-Briggs, the Enneagram, or StrengthsFinders. We have used all three internally and with our clients. Personality assessments tend to be a low stress way to increase self-awareness. 

Talk to a trusted mentor or friend. Sometimes simply having a conversation with someone you know and trust is enough to increase self-awareness and authenticity. Start by asking them if they feel authentically themselves where they work. Listen to what they say, and you may feel more comfortable engaging in this conversation as you hear their answer. 

Authenticity increases employee engagement and productivity. As a business leader, fostering authenticity in your organization starts with you. Ask yourself if you feel authentic in your role as a business leader, and if you need help, please reach out to us for a free 30-minute conversation. We’d love to get to know you so that we can help you get to know yourself. Authentically.