As we watch Egyptian officials make statements for the purpose of stabilizing a very volatile situation, and as President Obama and members of Congress consider how the U.S. might intervene, we are reminded of the challenge of leadership—no matter what our persuasions and philosophy. I have been working with AFED, a not-for-profit in Beirut, which is seeking to build a different kind of leadership, one that values innovative approaches to doing business and, in particular, sustainability (see videos of some of my talks there). So I’m paying close attention to the unfolding Egyptian situation.
A friend just sent me a piece by Deborah Gruenfeld and Lauren Zander in today’s Harvard Business Review, a way to explain the turmoil in the Middle East. The point of the article and of my friend’s email is that “authentic” leadership, which sounds like good stuff on the surface, can in fact be bad. The reasoning is that some people have authentic selves that are just plain bad.
The challenge I have with the with this way of thinking and the link to the implosion in the Middle East stems from the definition of authentic. In the article authenticity is associated with what is “real,” what comes naturally, or what something simply “is.” This is too narrow a view for the power in the concept of authenticity. It doesn’t include a systems understanding, by which I mean that that it does not include the way in which a person is necessarily and always part of a whole and how that changes the meaning of real. We can only determine what is real about a person when we understand them within their context.
I want to offer an alternative description of the working of authenticity and why we are experiencing the breakdown of leadership in many places, including in the Middle East.
Authenticity is not what is “comfortable” for a person or how they may appear to us moment to moment. It is more accurately the core of them, their essence, expressing itself in the world. Not what is on the surface, apparent in their personality, but in the deepest sense, the self that is always present. Essence is the highest self in each of us, which can be tapped not on demand but only through engagement.
In The Responsible Business’s way of working, people are asked to initiate specific, measurable improvements for stakeholders. When they are asked to engage rather than simply perform a delegated piece of work—whether or not the intention is the same—a different part of them is awakened.
An example is found in the story of Colgate, South Africa. One operator, Isaac Mashile, who led the detergent tower teams, decided to find a way to create small businesses and at the same time improve the oral health of children in his home township of Soweto. There were many parts of the task that he did not know how to do, but he was so committed to it that he grew and changed. He took on unfamiliar jobs like helping very small entrepreneur distributors set up a business and getting a dentist involved in improving children’s oral health.
Isaac’s natural self-behavior had been to do as he was told and sometimes, when he didn’t agree, simply not to do it. When he chose his own work within the context of a larger business strategy, a bigger expression of him emerged. He decided he needed assistance and he learned to ask for it. He pulled teams together across boundaries he hand never crossed or wanted to cross before. He developed a desire to for education, despite having avoided it before. The task and his personally chosen goals overrode his natural self and awakened his essence, his authentic self.
When a leaders are developed within a systems context, when they see themselves as critical to important outcomes and when they are asked to exercise personal agency in support of the possibilities and potential of a meaningful venture, their authentic selves arrive. The real, deeper self-expression becomes engaged, not just the surface personality. It isn’t necessary to strive for that, not necessary to push; within the context of engaged choice, a pull culture is created.
This is what Hagel, Brown, and Davison mean in The Power of Pull, when they say, “your passion is your profession.” Authenticity emerges when essential selves are invited to engage; it never results from delegation or coaching.
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