In my recent blogs, I've talked about the first two key principles of authenticity: being real and accepting just who we are, and understanding ourselves so we can develop an internal compass. In this blog, I'll talk about understanding power, stepping into our personal power and why personal power is a business issue.
Commonly, when we talk about power, most people think of power over someone else: command and control. After all, that's the most common power we're exposed to through our parents, caregivers, teachers, lecturers and finally our managers or CEO. In organisations, power is a reality and we are now recognising that the constructive use of power has an influence on the level of engagement an employee feels with his or her organisation.
When I talk of power in the context of personal authenticity, I'm talking about personal power, separate from any power that may come from position, knowledge, contacts or other sources.
Personal power does not involve power over anyone else. It means that we drive the bus that is our life. What we do with our life; what we hope for; how we find happiness is entirely up to us. Personal power simply involves domain over ourselves meaning that individually, we take responsibility for ourselves, the responses we have to circumstances, for the outcomes we create, as well as for the way we take and use the feedback those circumstances provide us with.
I've put this forward as the third key principle of Authenticity because I believe we need the other two at least on the radar before this one is feasible. We need to have recognition of our talents and skills, our successes, what is important to us and an understanding that how we perceive the world around us is unique to each of us, based on beliefs, values, past decisions and various other filters. We need that level of personal acceptance without judgement to see that we actually have power and are not helpless, victims to the whims of others.
Personal power, based on self awareness, brings with it both responsibility and choices. If we don't like what's going on around us, we can change it by changing our response to it, changing the environment, examining our beliefs, searching the situation for feedback that provides the opportunity to perceive or behave differently. We can set healthy boundaries rather than strong defenses. We can leave others to their own experiences without the need to control them, judge them or correct them. And if we do need to change something someone else is doing because it's not working and it's our responsibility to ensure it does, we can do so in a respectful manner without the need to belittle the other person.
How does personal power impact on work? People with personal power know what works for them and what doesn't. As mentioned earlier, they have healthy boundaries rather than strong defenses. This means they are better able to take feedback and use it to improve some aspect of their performance. They respect themselves and others and are able to actively participate in team building - the storming and norming phases. They are comfortable putting forward a different view than the one on the table, which breaks up group think. Their communication is clear - what they say is what they mean and what they will do. They don't engage in covert behaviour where they say one thing and do the opposite - such as agreeing to a course of action, then sabotaging it. They are capable of figuring out what gives their lives meaning and fulfillment and because of that, they can more readily see where they can make their contribution.
An employee who is self-aware, into personal improvement, takes responsibility for their own actions and reactions, has a strong internal compass and steps into their own power ... is an incredibly valuable and engaged employee. And that leads directly to improvements on the bottom line.
What do you think? I'd love to hear.
All the very best
Suzanne
When I talk about authenticity, I talk of 3 principles that are involved. I covered the first one in the The Business Case for Authenticity Part 1: being real and accepting our qualities and flaws, without judgement. I also talked about perspective being the key differentiator between whether something is a quality or a flaw.
In this blog, I want to address the next principle involved in authenticity: knowing yourself and acting with integrity.
Lao Tse famously said: It is wisdom to know others; It is enlightenment to know one's self. How easy is it to look at other people, what they do and how they do it, while making assumptions about their motivation! It’s so much more difficult to see ourselves clearly.
In fact, that is one of the challenges of feeling like an imposter. We have a totally distorted self-view because we tell ourselves that we’re not good enough and that if others really could see us, they would know we’re not as intelligent or capable as they think. Often this feeling comes from not recognising that we have gifts and talents - we think that if we can do something, then it can’t be rocket science and therefore it’s not special.
When we truly know ourselves, what we value, where we place our priorities, what we will do and what we won't, it makes decision-making so much easier. We develop an internal compass; our own true north. On the occasions we don’t follow our internal compass, we experience feedback by way of misgivings or some other attention-getting feeling. On the other hand, when we make decisions that follow our internal compass over and over again, we develop character and self-respect.
People get a sense of solidity and groundedness from their experience of us. They recognise the alignment - what you see is what you get. They sense consistency, and trust starts to build. Trust is the foundation of solid relationships at whatever level we conduct them.
Bringing this specifically back to the business environment, trust is a large part of what is missing in our organisations today. Over the past 5 - 10 years, we have learned of leaders in highly respected organisations who misappropriated funds, misled their public, treated staff poorly and so on.
Leadership emerges within organisations at any level when an individual comes forward with a sense of Purpose, a Vision, strong values and the courage of his or her convictions. Their passion and integrity are inviting. People want to be around them; to follow them. In other words, these leaders have discovered their true north - their internal compass - and they live by it. They know what brings their lives meaning and fulfillment. They have a unique contribution to make in the work space.
That sounds to me a lot like highly engaged and engaging leaders who have something to offer and who inspire others around them into action. If that isn’t important to business, then what is?
What do you think? I’d love to hear.
All the very best
Suzanne
Over the past few weeks, I have been travelling around Australia, talking to C-level women executives at sphinxx development events (www.sphinxx.org). My subject was authenticity and what stands in the way, namely the Imposter Syndrome. At the conclusion of the last event, I went back to the table I had been sitting at to collect my bags and accidentally overheard some of the participants talking about the day. The comment I heard was to the effect that 'Suzanne's topic was personal, not business'. I was surprised because I thought I had made the case for the value of authenticity in the workplace. Clearly not if they hadn't got that message.
I think authenticity anywhere is important and that it is a critical factor of the way we need to do business. So, I've decided to devote a few blogs to that effect.
In this blog, I'll talk about being real and acceptance of ourselves as whole beings and how that contributes to performance at work.
As many of you may have heard me say, authenticity is subjective - how authenticity manifests for each of us is different. There are some key principles that relate to authenticity.
Authenticity is about being real. We all have qualities and limitations. Many of us find it much easier to list our limitations than we do to identify and claim our strengths; our qualities. Then many of us use those limitations to keep ourselves separate and reinforce the "not good enough" paradigm we run. If we are to be authentic, we need to see both sides of the coin and accept them equally, without judgement. When we see our limitations as cause for shame, it keeps us separate and our primary motivation commonly is to keep others from seeing those limitations. Yet, if we see them, accept them and even share them, we will find that others have things they're not so proud of either. That in itself can create connections.
Similarly, when we see that we have talents and gifts and accept them with humility and gratitude, we are in a position to use them. Those talents and gifts don't make us any better than anyone else; they are simply what we've been given to work with. Others have their valuable gifts and talents too.
At work, our employing organisations (yes, that includes our own business), expect us to bring all of ourselves to work. At least, they want the good stuff - the past experiences, the creative thoughts, the skills and talents that can be cross-contextualised to work. Within our strengths, lies our ability to make our unique contribution at work. You may have experienced, though, that our employers don't particularly want the downside of having the whole beautifully flawed human being at work.
What is a flaw though? In my view, it depends on how you look at it. Being judgemental and critical can be seen as negative. In a different context, though, it can be seen as discerning. Being sensitive can be seen as negative. In another context, sensitivity can be seen as caring and support the ability to be empathetic. In other words, a quality is just that and we put the spin on it - positive or negative.
So, to be authentic, the first step is to be honest with ourselves and with others about who we are and what we offer - with all the magic and warts.
Being real about who we are without judgement allows us to connect with others regardless of how similar or different they are to us - without judgement: think performing teams, collaboration, high morale, strong communication and friends at work which impacts on employee engagement as just a few work areas impacted by being real or authenticity.
Being real without judgement also allows us to put forward our ideas and other any other contribution we can make: think innovation, the lifeblood of any competitive organisation.
More soon.
What do you think? I'd love to hear.
All the very best
Suzanne
Many of us have been challenged by growing up with one or more perfectionist parents or or caregivers. For those of you who are lucky enough to not know what I’m talking about, let me explain.
A perfectionist is someone who has in their mind an ideal as an outcome for a particular situation. That ideal is something intangible that cannot be found fault with in any way. The next step in this sabotage pattern is that we hold up what we have achieved in the same context and compare it to our ideal - now mind you, most of us who are perfectionists couldn’t exactly tell you what perfection is in that situation. We know, though, that we haven’t achieved that ideal. We look at what we have achieved and instead of celebrating our achievement, we focus on the gap between our achievement and this intangible ideal.
Having been raised by a perfectionist and having internalised that perfectionist way of looking at things, I recently had a breakthrough! Perfection and perfect are poles apart. We can’t achieve perfection and perfect is within our reach every minute of every day.
Perfection is a rod with which I flagellate myself (sounds vaguely naughty doesn’t it!) for not measuring up, compared with perfect as a statement of complete acceptance and surrender.
Perfect suggests that all is in the right place at the right time for me to learn, receive, grow and move forward as a human being. Everything is appreciated for the gift that it brings even when it might seem, on the surface, to be challenging or difficult. How different is that from perfection, where I stunt my own growth by not even allowing myself to appreciate what I have actually achieved?
So,as a very wise friend of mine, Joanne, says ... “Perfect, it is perfect. Thank you for everything.” Try saying that to yourself instead of beating yourself up for not measuring up. You’ll feel better and who knows what magic you’ll create.
What do you think? I’d love to hear.
All the very best
Suzanne
When we experience feeling like an imposter, that feeling is about the mistaken belief that we are not as clever or accomplished as our current circumstances would suggest. Our successes, if we can see them at all, are due to good luck, others’ mistaken views of us, charm - any factor other than our own abilities. Because we can’t see our own responsibility for the success we experience, we aren’t able to internalise that success and build on it, at the same time building our self-esteem.
Feeling not good enough is accomplished by the drive to ensure no-one else gets to see that. We can become very self-protective and accomplished at diverting or deflecting unwanted attention. We may judge and criticise others, righteously holding them to a standard of perfection we can’t reach ourselves. All those behaviours are driven by fear.
The interesting thing about fear, though, is that while the feeling is real, the “story” we’re telling ourselves is not. Fear is a conditioned response based on our current view of the world - our beliefs, attitudes and values, past experiences, decisions, needs and so on. That conditioned view informs our actions which dictates the results we get in our lives. For example, if we think we’re not good enough, that forms the goggles we have on when we look at the world around us. We act with “not good enough” in our minds and we get “not good enough” results which, in turn, reinforces that we simply don’t measure up. We need to break the cycle.
Fear exists in the future, not the present. Fear arises our body is in the present time but our mind is focussed on some future event that creates anxiety in us. The event hasn’t happened and we’re tying ourselves up in knots about it. Living in the present can get us past that anxiety and worry about something that may or may not lie in our future.
For many of us, fear can exist at the edge of our comfort zone. We experience something unfamiliar and instead of feeling excited about the breakthrough we’re about to have, we can feel afraid and pull back into the safety of what is familiar. When we do this, we deny our human drive to grow and evolve. To use the words of Stephanie Burns, we need to come closer and stay longer so that the overwhelming feeling of fear recedes and we are able to move through it.
So when you feel not good enough and are afraid that you just won’t measure up, here are a few tips that just might help you get past it.
You’re in good company. At least 70% of people experience that feeling and some of them are very famous indeed. Knowing that if you spoke to 7 out of 10 people and confessed that there are times you feel like a fake and fraud, they would say, “yes, me too” must take the sting out of it.
The feeling you are experiencing is based on a totally distorted self-view. Find someone you trust and ask them for honest feedback on your strengths and successes. Then listen to them rather than dismiss what they tell you.
All behaviour has a positive intention - a gain for you. What is the positive intention in feeling like a fake and fraud? And is there some other way you could satisfy that internal need so you can experience who you really are and what you’re capable of?
I’d love to hear your experiences and views.
Suzanne
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