This is not at all what your Mama taught you about business. And it may not even be what you learned in Business School or while working toward your MBA–not even in your ethics classes. But it might just make all the difference in the bottom-line.
Authenticity works.
It works on every level–from coworker-to-coworker interactions all the way to CEO-to-VP interactions. But here’s the big secret. It–the big IT of real business interactions–has to be learned.
Why? Because it isn’t what we’ve been taught. Not on any level–social, personal, professional or otherwise. We haven’t been taught how to be authentic. Instead, most of us have been taught how to get by or survive. And most of us have learned that we must “do what we have to do” to take care of ourselves and provide for our families. And with that philosophy in mind, we say, the bottom-line is the foundation for everything else that we do.
So, when we think about authenticity, we get pretty scared. We think that it means that the bottom-line is going to go away. We believe, on an even more primal level, that we won’t survive it.
Most of us think that authenticity simply means telling the truth. And because we think that way, when we make our New Year’s resolutions, we sometimes make the ones that say, “I will be more truthful.” Those have already faded into nothingness by now. Why? Because we weren’t being authentic, we were just being truthful.
But authenticity isn’t truthfulness. It’s being real. Truthfulness simply means you choose not to lie. Authenticity means that there is no incongruity between what you say, what you feel, what you believe, what you think and how you behave. All of those functions are working in the same direction. Authenticity means that when you look inside yourself, you know that person. And it also means that people can see that you are real.
Ever met someone you know, just intuitively know, to be a real person? If you have, you know that that information is conveyed without the use of any particular technique. They simply are what they appear to be. And you just know that you are dealing with the real deal.
And that’s how it will work with employees, employers, and customers. And that’s why it works to increase profitability. Profitability is largely based first on trust, and then on loyalty. That’s interdepartmental trust, employer-to-employee trust, coworker-to- coworker trust and employee-to-customer trust. And it starts with leadership. Not with the boss. Not with the supervisor. Not with the manager. It starts with leadership.
Authentic leadership is leadership that people will trust because they come to believe that it is the real deal. And this kind of leadership can occur at any level of interaction on the floor or in the office. You don’t have to be a boss, manager, supervisor or CEO to be an authentic leader–but if it happens that you also hold one of those positions–authenticity works.
So, here’s what that looks like. First, authenticity works from the inside out. Not vice-versa. Authenticity requires that we are willing to look inside of us and see what is really there. This doesn’t mean you have to get all gooey. It just means that you look in there and see what is really going on in there. Most of us think, however, that when we do this, we are going to have to just act on what we find, so we don’t really want to go looking around in there. In fact, most of us suffer from the illusion that if we don’t know it’s in there, it will never, ever come out. Of course, we all also know of those times when we have behaved in ways we didn’t understand or said things we later said we didn’t mean to say. When I hear someone say “I didn’t mean it” my response is always, “Well, someone in there must have meant it, because it sure did get done or said.” And when I hear someone say, “I don’t know why I did that!” my response is, “Someone inside of you knows why you did that, because you did that.”
We can see then that not knowing what’s going on inside of us could be detrimental to our interoffice, intra-office and extra-office dynamics, thus reducing trust and thereby, ultimately, profitability. When there is distrust in interoffice, intra-office and extra-office dynamics there is much less energy going to creativity and the hard work of bringing a project to its completion–thus, decreasing profitability. When there is trust in the interoffice, intra-office and extra-office dynamics, energy is not wasted on self-preservation, and can then be used on the creativity, motivation, and the excellence that is necessary to profitability.
So, authenticity means knowing the difference between who we act like and who we really are. And that means really getting down and dirty with who we act like and asking ourselves some serious questions about the other parts of us that are being ignored as we act like that. As a Psychotherapist and Corporate Trainer, I often have people say to me: “I don’t like that about myself.” My response is very often, “Who is the ‘I’ that doesn’t like it, and who is the ‘myself’ that is acting in ways the ‘I’ doesn’t like?” That’s not as big a mystery as it seems. We can answer that question by listening to ourselves.
Most of us have been both subtly and overtly taught that we can’t ever really get to know ourselves. We think we can know other people, but we can’t really know ourselves. However, the truth is just the opposite: We can only know of other people what they present, and we can ONLY know ourselves. But in order to know ourselves we have to be willing to look in there and see the inner conflicts, the fears, the angers, the passions, the hopes and the dreams. And we have to be willing to listen to our gut about other people. That doesn’t mean we tell other people what we’ve seen about them. It only means that our intuition can guide us with regard to at least some part of our interactions with others.
There’s more, much more about coming to know the self, but suffice it for now to say that knowing the self is primary to becoming an authentic leader. The next step is to be real–genuine–in our interactions with others. This doesn’t mean–as we fear–that we should just open up and tell everyone everything we are thinking. It means that we tune in to both ourselves and the other person in every single interaction. At first glance that might seem difficult if not impossible to do, but with practice at looking inside oneself, one becomes much more proficient at tuning into every dynamic. The skill of being authentic can absolutely be learned. And being authentic does build profitability.
Most of us think that what we are supposed to do in a business negotiation or transaction is get down to the bottom-line by schmoozing, manipulating, or outwitting the other. But these transactions don’t build trust. And if trust isn’t there, there’s simply not going to be as great a flow of money coming in either direction. We put our money behind that which we trust.
Further, most people think that Customer Service skills have to do with being motivated to Sell, Sell, Sell. But customers know when they are being sold, sold, sold. And most customers are pretty jaded about what to expect from a sales person too. So, even if you are authentic in your interactions with them, they may not, at first, trust you. But if, over time, they see that you really can back up what you say, they will not only begin to trust you, but they will begin to be loyal to you. And they will tell others about you. Thus, increasing profitability.
While authenticity definitely makes us more compassionate with others in our interactions with them, it also makes us much more discerning about what’s really going on in the room in any dynamic. Authenticity allows us to notice what’s going on inside of us at every level when we are interacting with another person or group of people. Therefore, we are much more likely to be right on target when we create a product people can use, or negotiate on the finer points of a business deal. Such discernment also allows us to steer clear of the bad deals. Thus, increasing profitability.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we learned that we’ve been going about this whole thing of big business all wrong–and that THAT is what we can learn from this economic downturn? Wouldn’t it be interesting if we learned that being authentic is the way to make the big bucks?
~Andrea Mathews, LPC, LLC is a Psychotherapist with 30 years’ experience in the Mental Health field, seven of those in upper management, and the last 15 of those in private practice. And she’s also spent the past 24 years offering Corporate Training, Motivational, and Inspirational speaking both in-house and contractually. She has blended her experience in management with her in-depth understanding of the human psyche, creating her own special brand. Learn more about her at www.InnerWings.com