You might question what you will have to give up—what the cost of authentic leadership is—when you consider leaders who lead with authenticity and wish to emulate them.
However, it is the wrong thing to ask since the truth is that you are a far more effective leader when you are real. People are eager to follow you.
Here are five strategies to help you begin utilizing your innate abilities immediately.
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1. Embrace leadership.
People are eager to follow. People are waiting to hear your vision as a leader when you enter a meeting. It is your responsibility to outline the course of action. The leadership role is not embraced by far too many entrepreneurs, particularly those who started and funded their own businesses.
Since their managers would be the ones carrying out the plan, some leaders prefer that their management team develop the plan. However, that viewpoint is ineffective because managers lack strategic thinking. And as a leader, you wind up failing to achieve your primary strategic objective in favor of merely attempting to please everyone.
2. Be a servant to the vision.
Your dedication to the business comes first. Not the employees, clients, or investors. It’s for your vision and the business. Therefore, you should aim to move the business in that direction with all you do. Become fixated on it. Take out everything that is in the path.
Even if your business has been expanding, do you have a long-term employee that no longer fits in with the broader organization? It’s time to let them go. One of the largest mistakes made by expanding entrepreneurs is to retain staff like this. By keeping them on, you’re harming everyone, including the workers themselves.
Think about the leaders who produce top-notch offerings. Do you believe that Steve Jobs ever permitted employees who weren’t contributing to the team to remain on it? Are you overlooking people? By keeping them around, you are betraying your integrity.
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3. Be vulnerable — but in a healthy way.
At one point, I worked with a CEO whose company had grown for ten years in a row until his industry collapsed. He was concerned. He would have to break the news that his company was about to lose money for the first time at a meeting with the entire staff.
He responded, “Of course, all of his competitors were doing poorly,” when I inquired if anyone else was aware that the business was struggling.
I then collaborated with him to confront the situation head-on. In order to gain the trust of his staff, he broke the terrible news to the rest of the firm and instead of giving in, used it as motivation to reduce expenses and improve the company’s efficiency.
Your other option, trying to “BS” people, doesn’t work, regardless of how skilled you believe you are. People can sense when you’re not being sincere, and they begin to distrust you because intuition is real. Instead, you become a leader that others want to follow when you can be both strong and vulnerable at the same time.
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4. Employ “neutral honesty.”
When faced with a challenging circumstance, you will be astonished at how effective the truth is. You do need to know how to use it in a healthy way.
Let’s say that one of your salespeople isn’t doing well. Try this instead of handing that person the sudden axe after trying to find a new one behind their back:
Take a seat. Inform this person that things aren’t going well. Give notice of six weeks. While committing to give over accounts to the sales manager or the next in line with excellence (all of which can be documented in writing), the individual can search for another job.
This protects you from creating an enemy, allows the departing employee to leave on a positive note, and gives you time to locate a successor with the least amount of stress.
This kind of behavior is what I refer to as “neutral honest” as no one is being blamed. You’re only paying attention to the facts. Furthermore, facts are indisputable. Therefore, remove personal feelings from the situation, and innovative answers will emerge.
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5. Take complete ownership.
I’ll tell you a secret: You are accountable for everything that occurs.
Your VP of sales isn’t solely to blame if your organization doesn’t meet the sales targets. It’s his (or her) and yours. And neither of you will get half of it. It is entirely yours.
If those under your leadership don’t see that you accept full responsibility, they won’t either. This is just a mental change, and it doesn’t necessarily entail adding more labor. As soon as something occurs, consider how your leadership made it possible, and then begin determining what has to be done to address it.
People will soon realize that achieving achievements is more important than assigning blame.
Think about a real-world instance. Seven individuals perished in 1982 after someone tampered with Tylenol capsules by adding the deadly cyanide into several unguarded bottles. Although it had done nothing wrong legally, the maker, Johnson & Johnson, immediately recalled all Tylenol bottles, apologized, and offered the families support and compensation.
The narrative turned into a case study on how to be honest and take responsibility when dealing with a catastrophe. According to many, J&J’s move raised Tylenol’s prominence and improved its reputation.
J&J’s approach is comparable to that of Lance Armstrong and Pete Rose, two athletes who repeatedly misled the public before it was revealed that they were in fact guilty. Examine the legacy of these men. Now consider the type of person you wish to be known for.