To be an authentic leader…be yourself, more, with skill
Authentic leaders inspire trust, foster genuine connections, and cultivate environments where individuals can thrive. As a strengths-based leadership coach, I am passionate about guiding managers on a journey to discover and leverage their unique strengths, fostering authentic leadership that resonates with both the leader and their team. In this blog, we’ll explore the transformative power of authentic leadership through a strengths-based lens.
Authenticity is the healthy alignment between internal values and beliefs and external behavior. Authenticity comes from finding your style and your way of leading — and making life decisions that reflect your ethics, values, and your personality.
Leadership success starts with authenticity — doing our jobs without compromising our values and personality.
Self-awareness as a starting point for Authentic and Powerful Leadership
Through my work as an HR Manager in many different organizations and now as a leadership & strengths coach, I am convinced that developing a strengths-based approach is the key to authentic, positive and effective leadership. It starts with developing a good self-image and understanding one’s own strengths and leadership abilities. Effective leadership begins with the leaders themselves. It is important for leaders to be aware of their skills and strengths, as well as their weaknesses. They should be able to reflect on their own behavior and be open to feedback from others.
Leadership begins with you –and you will not succeed as a leader unless you have some sense of who you are
– ‘Why should anyone be led by you’ – Goffee & Jones
Bill George, professor of leadership at Harvard Business School and former CEO of Medtronic, argues that self-awareness is the starting point of leadership. Self-awareness is the ability to be aware of one’s thoughts, emotions, and values. Authentic leadership begins with self-awareness. Bill George is an authority on authentic leadership and has written several books on the subject, including True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership and Discover Your True North.
According to him, authentic leadership begins with developing a deep understanding of your own goals, values, and personality. By embracing these dimensions of authentic leadership, leaders can work from their own leadership strength and have a positive impact on their teams and organizations.
Discovering your authentic leadership requires a commitment to developing yourself. Like musicians and athletes, you must devote yourself to a lifetime of realizing your potential.
Authentic leaders are aware of their strengths and weaknesses by reflecting on their own behavior (Lutken, 2010). Reflection leads to self-knowledge (Smith, 2001), which is the essence of authentic leaders (Walumbwa, Wang, Wang, Schaubroeck & Avolio, 2010). By being aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, authentic leaders can align their leadership style with their personal values and goals.
Insight into one’s own leadership strengths form the basis for authentic leadership. By understanding and leveraging your strengths, you can address your blind spots and better understand yourself and align your leadership style with your personal values and goals. By understanding what your strengths are, you can better understand what’s important to you and what makes you stronger, making you lead more authentically, effectively and with more impact.
Strengths-based leadership focuses, among other things, on identifying and developing the strengths of individuals and teams. And by working as a manager based on your own values, goals and personal strengths, you can develop and strengthen an authentic, talent-oriented style of leadership.
In addition to introspection, it is also important that managers are open to feedback from others, as they often have blind spots regarding their qualities and the way their leadership is perceived by stakeholders.
I offer strengths-based leadership coaching, an online academy with many resources, tools and assignments so that you can immediately test the acquired knowledge in practice. You will start with the unique Strengthscope Leader assessment. This is aimed at identifying performance risks and developing strengths, leadership skills, effective leadership behavior. It helps leaders become more self-aware and understand how their leadership is perceived by others. As a manager it is important to invest in your own development, take the step to explore strengths-based leadership coaching and the Strengthscope Leader assessment.
To strengthen your leadership qualities and have a positive impact on your team and organization. This program also aligns with the need for feedback for effective leadership development from different perspectives, such as colleagues, team members, and executives.
Managers need a lot of self-insight and that is sometimes lacking in practice. Do you know what effect your behavior and leadership style have on others? What helps you and what hinders you from leading well? What your strengths and weaknesses are? Awareness of your managerial style and the effect of your behavior on employees is of great importance.
A common problem is that there is often is a big difference between how leaders perceive their own qualities and leadership style and how their employees experience and value this. Many leaders have an incomplete picture of themselves, often exaggerating or underestimating their strengths and having little knowledge of their pitfalls and other performance risks. Therefore, 360-degree strengths-based feedback is a valuable tool, as it provides insight into how others see the leader’s strengths and which qualities and behaviors they value and find most effective.
Work from an authentic, effective leadership style that suits you as a person and what your team and organization expect from you as a leader in this time. Interested? Start with my leadership program for developing authentic, powerful, talent-focused leadership. If you want more information, please contact me.
My services are in Dutch and English to strengthen your leadership skills and become a more Positive and Effective Leader.
I use strengths-based coaching. I am a Strengthscope® practitioner. Strengthscope® is the only strengths profile with a British Psychological Society registered test.
Get your personal StrengthscopeLeader™ profile. With access to the assessment, feedback from your stakeholders, the online academy Leadership & Talent and personal coaching, you’ll gain clarity on your strengths, values, skills, aspirations, vision, leadership behaviors, and leadership outcomes. This serves as a great starting point for your leadership journey.
Research confirms that leveraging your strengths and values is a more effective way to grow as a leader. By focusing on your strengths, you can maximize your performance and achieve greater impact, this approach also improves engagement and delivers better results.
This e-book is for authentic leaders and for those leaders who aspire to be.
