This article is by Michael Glanville – keynote speaker and executive coach
Being authentic and true to your values is a leadership superpower. It is a gift, a grounding and foundation of who you are and what you stand for. From the process you go through to make decisions, to the way you articulate yourself, your body language and how people see you, being authentic is key.
If you ask Google the question “what does it mean if a person is authentic” it gives the following: “Being authentic means acting in accordance with one’s true self, values and beliefs, and expressing oneself genuinely without pretence or conformity to external expectations”
If you think about all the leaders and managers you have had over the years, would you describe them as always being authentic, leading with strong values and beliefs? Or could they be swayed by the influence of others, peer pressure, social media or other external forces?
The starting point for leading authentically is to understand who you are as a leader, what your values are, what is important to you and what isn’t important to you. While reading this article, take a piece of paper and note down the personal values you have, asking yourself, do you live up to them when managing your team or engaging with your clients?
Whether your answer is yes or no, consider next whether you have more opportunities to use your values to your advantage. You might have a team, board or client meeting today; will you stick to your values if the conversations become difficult or will you be swayed by the influence of the others in the room or the financial circumstances of the business?
The more you can be self-aware in business, the more growth opportunities you have, not just for yourself but also for those in your team. Self-awareness is also about knowing and understanding your triggers. We all have triggers, things that make us happy, things that make us stressed, times where we cannot say we are operating at 100%; knowing these triggers and using your self-awareness to manage your activities, approach, meetings, conversations and client engagements can help you to deliver much better results.
I remember a particularly difficult client from several years ago. We all have them, those who are strong willed, who know what they want from your business and your people and who bring in significant sales revenue.
Business is about service; whether it be customer service, client engagement, customer experience, customer journey or just sales, it is all about creating products for people to buy, and for them to have a positive experience in doing so. However, we don’t always get it right and at times we let our customers down. Having let down this customer, they were very unhappy.
My team had done an exceptional job to manage the situation and to put things right and I was proud of every interaction they had. But unfortunately, we had not made headway. Unhappiness turned to rudeness, shouting and using aggression to deliver a message.
Let’s pause for a moment, to consider the next step. You might think it is obvious, to give the customer all they are asking for to protect the revenue. How would your team feel if that was your chosen path? Or you may find yourself rising to the rudeness and responding with agitation.
Put yourself in these leadership shoes and think about the values you wrote down and how you want to be seen as a leader. With these in mind, what would be important to you in dealing with this situation? It might be the customer or the team, the brand or the business.
My values are very important to me because I strive to lead every day with authenticity. I want my team to see me as honest, strong, charismatic and as someone with integrity willing to take a risk for the greater good. These are the values I used on that day. Being rude to my team is unacceptable and won’t be tolerated. The client concerned apologised and understood why the refund they were seeking was not appropriate.
They were reassured that we valued their business, and we had an open honest conversation which agreed a pathway to growth for both of our businesses. Today that commercial customer is still there growing and driving up sales revenue.
That was my way, however all businesses are different, with different clients and different teams, and you and your values and beliefs will be different. Your own values and beliefs will be the basis on which you make decisions, enabling you to lead authentically.
Today in my coaching business, when helping directors to build their businesses, to lead, develop, train, plan, grow and build even stronger businesses and boards, I ask them, what are your values and beliefs? What do you think makes you? It is often these questions which create the foundation of much of our work going forward.
I titled this article ‘Leading authentically – the most powerful sales tool you have’ for a reason. Because people buy from people. If you can develop a culture in your business where your team understand your values and beliefs and see you leading authentically, keeping them central to all you do, they will follow you. They will treat your customers in the same way, buy in to your ideas and support you when the times get tough.
So today ask yourself, are you leading with authenticity? Leading out of your values and beliefs? Do you seek counsel for your decision making from someone with aligned values? For it is these which are key to helping you make the right decisions for your people and business.
More about Michael
After over 25 years of success in business across the leisure and property sectors, and having developed some amazing people, Michael now provides a portfolio of services from executive coaching, career coaching, non-executive director and keynote speaking.
Michael is a Sunday Times / LDC award winning leader, a coach, mentor and keynote speaker and runs an inspirational executive coaching programme that improves performance and results.
Michael has spent much of his career in private business with MDL Marinas Group, most recently as CEO/MD, navigating the business through COVID and then pivoting elements of the core business to drive growth.
