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Tip 49 – Developing an authentic way forward
How can we experience the joy of being real, being true to ourselves and the success that follows that? How can we create meaning for every action and every relationship we experience?
Living in alignment with our purpose is something that has been discussed by philosophers and spiritual teachers. This ideal is now also entering the business world where it is known under different names, such as: authentic leadership, integral business, conscious capitalism and mindful marketing. Being authentic is equally important in family systems.
But what are the important elements and how can we develop them. Authenticity refers to the truthfulness of origins, sincerity and intentions, and is particularly important in any leadership role.
The essence of authentic leadership is being able to see what is needed, and then inspiring others to take action to effect change. The key to successful leadership is authentic leadership communication.
In his book Leading Out Loud: Inspiring Change Through Authentic Communications Terry Pearce suggests that there are three pre-requisites for authentic leadership communication:
- Discovering what matters to you: Authenticity arises from an awareness of your convictions and vision. We all have something that we are passionate about, based on our particular make up and our rich and sometimes dire personal history.
- Finding our voice: At some time in our lives, usually at a very young age, most of us abandon our real voice and adopt a more conventional one. The leader, through introspection and discipline, must reconnect to their authentic voice and amplify it so that it resonates with those who follow them.
- Deciding to lead: Discovering what matters to you and finding your voice to express it is not enough. You need to decide to commit to creating inspirational interaction with others, which involves getting to know your own emotional landscape and how to connect it to that of others.
He explains how authentic human connection is missing from today's communications, even though people crave it, especially as they evaluate who they trust to lead them through rapid change. He maintains that leaders who communicate authentically and passionately will inspire loyalty and make their mark. So putting the personal perspective back into our communications is critical.
In our modern culture men and women are able to interact with one another in many ways: they can sing dance or play together with little difficulty but their ability to talk together about subjects that matter deeply to them seems invariable to lead to dispute, division and sometimes to violence.
A way to avoid this is to use ‘Dialogue’. Here Dialogue has a special meaning. It is a way of exploring the roots of the many problems that face humanity today. It enables inquiry into, and understanding of, the sorts of processes that fragment and interfere with real communication between individuals, families, different parts of the same organisation and even nations.
As Glenna Gerard puts it “Dialogue is about what we value and how we define it. It is about discovering what our true values are, about looking beyond the superficial and automatic answers to our questions. Dialogue is about expanding our capacity for attention, awareness and learning with and from each other. It is about exploring the frontiers of what it means to be human, in relationship to each other and our world”
This is Dialogue with a capital ‘D’. Here it is useful to compare Dialogue with discussion. David Bohm suggests “A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favour of their views as they try to convince others to change. This may produce some agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative. The purpose of dialogue is to reveal the incoherence in our thought. In so doing, it becomes possible to discover or re-establish a ‘genuine and creative collective consciousness’. The process of dialogue is a process of ‘awakening’, and entails a free flow of meaning among all the participants”
So what are the behaviours that support dialogue and lead to authenticity?
- Suspension of judgment when listening and speaking. When we listen and suspend judgment
we open the door to expanded understanding. When we speak without judgment we open
the door for others to listen to us.
- Respect for differences. Our respect is grounded in the belief that everyone has
an essential contribution to make and is to be honoured for the perspective which
only they can bring.
- Role and status suspension. In dialogue, all participants and their contributions
are absolutely essential to developing an integrated whole view. No one perspective
is more important than any other. Dialogue is about power-with, versus power-over
or power-under.
- Balancing inquiry and advocacy. In dialogue we inquire to discover and understand
others’ perspectives and ideas and we advocate to offer our own for consideration.
The intention is to bring forth and make visible assumptions, relationships and gain
new insight and understanding. We often tend to advocate to convince others of our
positions Therefore a good place to start with this guideline is to practise bringing
more inquiry into the conversation.
- Focus on learning. Our intention is to learn from each other, to expand our view
and understanding, versus evaluate and determine who has the ‘best’ view. When we
are focused on learning we tend to ask more questions, try new things. We are willing
to disclose our thinking so that we can see both what is working for us and what
we might want to change. We want to hear from all parties so that we can gain the
advantage of differing perspectives.
Click here to arrange an introductory session to find out more.
A coach can help you in many ways including discovering your authenticity and developing behaviours to support dialoguing.