Are You Leading from a Staged Version of Yourself?
We’re in the process of selling our house and I’ve been amazed at the efforts we’ve needed to get it ready. Over the past few months, I’ve been removing a lot of stuff – personal pictures, games and books that cluttered the bookshelves and extra furniture that made rooms look crowded. When the stagers arrived, they told us we also needed to remove everything ‘functional’ – kleenex boxes, garbage cans, hand soap and toilet paper rolls.
The house listing photos needed to present our house as if we didn’t live there. It needed to look polished, almost staged to the point of being unrecognizable. It makes me think of the traps of social media and presenting the best version of yourself… It’s not real and it’s not authentic. It’s what people want initially – a perfect-looking house. But, it’s not reality or what you’d experience living in a house.
It looks more like this:
How do you show up at work? Do you bring your perfectly ‘staged’ self, or your authentic self?
We often talk about authentic leadership. It’s about showing up in a way that is genuine, consistent, and grounded in your values. Not contrived or curated for approval, but not unfiltered either.
This is where it gets tricky. Authenticity can sometimes be misunderstood as permission to say whatever you think, however you want to say it. It can become an excuse to be blunt, too harsh, and prioritize honesty over caring.
I attended a small high school and, by grade 12, would regularly walk into the principal’s office to share my thoughts on what was wrong with the school and what needed to change. I was probably telling him how he should do his job, and he graciously listened to what I had to say. He also regularly told me, “Hannah, be critical but kind.”
I wouldn’t have called it then, but my ‘authenticity’ was my permission for being too direct, too blunt and too critical. I’ve carried his advice for decades and have been practicing how to be discerning and honest while still being sensitive and caring toward others.
I delivered a keynote presentation to a group of 200 leaders recently. The VP of HR introduced the leadership summit by introducing whole-person leadership, which is about bringing your full self to work. But bringing your full self to work doesn’t mean putting your entire life on display. It’s more about resisting the urge to say the first thing that comes to mind, and choosing your response with awareness of both the situation and the impact you will have.
Let me circle back to authenticity.
Authenticity on its own can become a reflex. Whole-person leadership asks leaders to pause and consider the impact of how they show up – not filtered to the point of being inauthentic, and not unfiltered to the point of causing harm, but integrated.
And maybe that’s what my principal was getting at all those years ago. He was telling me to not just be honest, but to be thoughtful in how that honesty lands.
Critical. And kind.
How do you move beyond a ‘staged’ version of yourself without swinging to being unfiltered and causing harm?
Safe to speak up
IIlustration source: https://www.fosslien.com/liz-fosslien-psychological-safety
I delivered a keynote session on neurodiversity to a group of leaders recently. My focus was on increasing understanding, having a shared, felt experience to develop empathy and having an honest conversation about what a leader’s role is in supporting neurodiverse employees. It was an interactive session – there was such great engagement and questions from the leaders. They asked hard questions about how to balance the needs of different team members who may have conflicting needs, what their responsibilities are, and what the employee’s responsibilities are.
We couldn’t address all of their questions in the 90-minutes we had, so we created a parking lot of questions to circle back to.
I was asked how creating psychological safety for neurodivergent employees might be different than for neurotypical employees. I responded with a story:
I host a breakfast for leaders in HR and learning. We gather each month to share issues and ideas we’re facing in our work. I provide a topic to focus the conversation, but anyone can introduce their topics to the discussion. A few months ago, the topic was neurodiversity. Interestingly, half of our group identified as autistic and/or ADHD. One woman shared that at her new company, she had the courage to ask if she could bring her knitting to meetings. Keeping her hands busy helps her focus. She was nervous and then delighted when her employer said sure and had no issues with it. She shared that this was the first time she felt she could be herself at work.
Psychological safety, especially for neurodivergent employees, is not built through broad statements or policies alone. It is built when people feel they can ask for what they need without fear of judgement, and trust that their request will be met with curiosity rather than resistance.
It often looks simple on the surface. A yes to knitting in a meeting. A small adjustment, but for the person asking, it can carry real risk.
For leaders, this is a reminder that inclusion is not about treating everyone the same. It is about creating the conditions where different needs can be expressed and supported in ways that help people do their best work.
Approach situations with curiosity and ask your employees, “How do you work best?”
Double down to lead in the Age of AI
When I’m asked what skills leaders need to navigate AI with their teams, I think of the skills leaders already need. My list above is perhaps a bit ‘tongue in cheek’, but I do think leaders need to double down on the skills they needed before AI. In fact, I think those core leadership skills become more important in the age of AI because we need to keep the human-ness front and centre as we navigate this disruption.
Instead of AI replacing the need for strong leadership, it’s raising the bar. The technical capabilities around us are advancing quickly, but the human experience of work is becoming more complex, not less.
Leaders are still being asked to create clarity in ambiguity. They need to build trust, communicate with intention, and navigate conflicting priorities as they make decisions that impact people’s work and wellbeing.
As more work becomes automated, it’s how leaders show up in moments that cannot be automated. It’s how leaders listen, respond and create space for others to think, contribute and challenge.
Over time, we’ve had different leadership models come into favour, then quietly slip into the background as a new theory takes root. Frameworks like Trait Theory of Leadership, Situational Leadership, and Transformational Leadership.
In the 1940s, the Ohio State University started a longitudinal study on leadership. Researchers surveyed thousands of individuals across a range of organizations, asking them to describe their leaders’ behaviours, and used those responses to identify patterns in how leaders approach tasks and relationships.[1] It was revolutionary in its day because it shifted the narrative away from traits, which are impossibly difficult to define. Instead, the researchers focused on behaviours, which are observable and therefore definable. They organized the behaviours they identified into two categories – initiation of structure and consideration. Many of the traits we talk about today are extensions of these categories. How we describe them has evolved, but the underlying leadership work has not.
- Initiation of structure is about providing clarity and includes:
- Clarifying roles, expectations and how work should get done
- Setting goals, timelines and priorities for the team
- Organizing tasks and processes so work is coordinated and efficient
- Consideration is about providing safety and includes:
- Building trust and showing respect for individuals
- Listening, supporting and being attentive to employees’ needs
- Creating an environment where people feel valued and comfortable contributing
These two types of behaviours aren’t two ends of a continuum but are independent of each other. Leaders can score high or low in either.
Finally, this research was significant because behaviours can be developed. It made a case for ‘leaders are made’.
“Are leaders born or made?”
And yet, like so many leadership models, it fell out of favour and has more recently been referred to as ‘The Forgotten Ones’.
I think the behaviours and the distinction between Initiation of Structure and Consideration are still relevant today. It has withstood the test of time and provides a still-relevant foundation to guide how leaders respond in the age of AI. Leaders still need initiation of structure and consideration. The consideration behaviours become even more important.
As AI takes on more work, how can you be intentional about providing clarity and creating safety?
[1] Ohio State Leadership Studies (1940s–1950s), led by R. M. Stogdill, Bureau of Business Research, Ohio State University
In case you missed it
I’ve shared some additional posts online. Here they are, in case you missed them.
- Team culture of learning for employee growth (video link)
- Seeing Leadership Through a New Lens: How Metaphors Spark Change (video link)
