By Rebecca Theim
for release August 2010
Stephanie Nora White, co-founder of Chicago-based executive communications and coaching consultancy WPNT, Ltd. / Wixted Pope Nora Thompson & Associates, remembers the moment she realized a prospective client's company had a long way to go before being able to understand and practice what has come to be known as "authentic leadership."
Nora White and the client entered the company cafeteria and made their way to a specific table where executives sat with one another during the lunch hour.
"It defeated the purpose" of having executives join rank-and-file employees, says Nora White, a former broadcast journalist and industry spokesperson whose 20-year-old firm has counseled and coached executives at scores of Fortune 500 companies. "They weren't taking advantage of an opportunity to experience the company as their employees did.
"The very best leaders gain a competitive advantage by putting themselves in the shoes of their important audiences. Even if they don't live in that world, they at least have an understanding of it. They connect with employees, customers, shareholders and suppliers by experiencing life from their vantage points."
As organizations strive to achieve greater productivity and innovation in an increasingly volatile global economy, executives realize they must better engage and connect with their stakeholders. One path to those stronger connections, business experts counsel, is through "authentic leadership." But what exactly does that seemingly ambiguous phrase mean?
Defining "Authentic Leadership"
Bruce Avolio, executive director of the Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business, is a leading scholar on authentic leadership and how organizations can coach their leaders to achieve it. Avolio, former director of the Gallup Leadership Institute, developed a simple, four-question true-false quiz to help organizations determine if their leaders lead authentically:
- They act in the best interest of the organization. (Ethics/Morality)
- Employees can tell them exactly what they really think. (Balanced Decision-Making)
- They say exactly what they mean. (Transparency)
- They are able and willing to admit their mistakes. (Self-Awareness)
It's "the ability to understand a situation from the perspective of those you're leading and to develop the 'emotional muscle memory' to recall that feeling and draw upon it when you're coaching and leading them," Nora White adds.
Benefits of Authentic Leadership
In addition to the obvious value of transparent, ethical and balanced decision-making, a primary benefit of authentic leadership is improved employee retention, according to Avolio and healthcare management and training consultant Matthew M. Modleski. Drawing on the business adage that "employees don't leave companies, they leave managers," authentic leaders have better track records at retaining critical talent.
Another advantage is that authentic leadership motivates "employees to achieve maximum output, instead of just achieving a pre-defined level of minimum output" defined in a performance review, says Modleski, whose client roster includes Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and several Johnson & Johnson operating companies.
Leading authentically and coaching others to do the same becomes especially important during difficult times like the current recession, Nora White says. "Being an authentic leader means being worthy of people's trust. If you're going to lead and galvanize people, they have to trust you because you're going to need their trust when you're forced to make the unpopular decisions," she says.
Achieving and Coaching Authentic Leadership
Authentic leadership requires real desire and hard work - by those practicing, coaching and learning it. "You have to be committed to truly understanding what people live through, to see the world through their eyes," Nora White says.
In coaching hundreds of firms through corporate restructurings and downsizings, WPNT often has executives spend time discussing how employees will feel when they're told they're losing their jobs. "Throw out the 50-plus slide PowerPoint with all of the data on why the plant needs to close," she says. "People don't care what the business argument is at that point in time. All they care about is how it's going to be make them feel, and look to their families, their neighbors and their colleagues."
Nora White also has coached executive clients in the midst of workplace accidents or injuries to visit hospitals and talk to family members of survivors. "It changes their entire perspective and how they connect with employees," she says.
"If leaders make efforts like that, and coach others within their organization to also do so, they'll make better business decisions that will benefit everyone."