The Leadership Coaching Blog

I had a major cull of magazines waiting to be read yesterday, and tore part of a page from a CIPD magazine - a box detailing what it means to be an authentic leader - which struck a chord.

Unfortunately, I didn’t keep a record of the article it belonged to, so can’t attribute it to anyone!

• Authentic Leaders do what they say - and practise what they preach.  Nothing betrays aspiring leaders as much as trying to persuade others to do things that they would never do themselves.  But an ability to do what you say is not enough on its own.
• Authentic Leadership also involves an element of coherence.   In other words, despite the need to play different roles at different times for different audiences, authentic leaders display a ‘real self’ that holds these separate performances together.
• Authentic leadership involves a kind of comfort with self, which is often hard to attain.  To be a more effective leader, you must be skilled at ‘being yourself.’

I couldn’t have said it better myself!