Combatting Toxic Authenticity in Leadership
Authenticity has become a buzzword in leadership, but what does it truly mean to be an authentic leader? In my coaching practice, we often define authenticity as living and leading in a state of flow, fully connected to your zone of genius, and grounded in collective and systemic wisdom. But many organizations and leaders get this wrong.
Toxic Authenticity Gut-Check:
✔ Being yourself at all costs, especially when the cost is your own sanity or sense of safety
✔ Giving hard feedback because you are “just being honest” without checking in on your own self-awareness first
✔ Implementing strong DEIB initiatives for the sake of optics
✔ Fostering a 'cool' company culture with no meaningful people-centered substance to back it up
✔ Sharing personal life details at work to create a [false] sense of closeness
✔ The casual dress code, happy hours, and calling your team a 'family' (you are not a family, you are colleagues.)
Real authenticity is living and leading in a state of flow, fully connected to your zone of genius, and grounded in collective and systemic wisdom.
However, having navigated through many organizations with that toxic authenticity culture, I’ve come to see that true authenticity in leadership is far deeper and more complex:
⭐ Self-led Leadership: Authenticity means being deeply connected to your inner 'parts,' 'voices,' or 'triggers.' It's about profound self-awareness coupled with self-compassion.
⭐ Mastering Presence: True presence isn’t just about being in the room or showing up as a particular archetype of a leader; it's about deeply understanding both what you are and aren’t aware of at any moment and deepening your ability to make conscious decisions with a full set of self-led choices.
⭐ Systemic Understanding: Authenticity involves recognizing your role within the larger system, understanding its complexities, and making choices that benefit both the individual and the collective.
⭐ Articulating the Inner Self: It’s about developing the skill to articulate and communicate the inner workings of the self in a way that supports and benefits everyone involved. Your ability to communicate well has a large impact on your felt sense of authenticity.
True authenticity isn’t a badge to be earned; it’s a continuous journey of deep personal and professional development.
Our societal attempts to cultivate authenticity often fall short because they skim the surface with programs and initiatives that don't tackle the profound individual work required, particularly at the leadership level, nor do they tackle the many systemic issues across organizations and cultures that may make it easier or harder for any one person to feel a true sense of belonging.
True authenticity isn’t a badge to be earned; it’s a continuous journey of deep personal and professional development. It requires a deep expansion of self-awareness, presence, and communication skills. You must be willing to know yourself more each day, to understand your triggers, blind spots, and belief systems, and to express your inner self authentically to the world around you.
Until you do this deep work, you might find yourself close to authenticity but not quite there; and from there to full-blown toxic authenticity is a very slippery and enticing slope.
It's why coaching can be so transformative as it provides the space to explore your inner world and connect it with your behaviors in ways that foster truly authentic leadership.
Client Stories: I worked with Client M, who struggled with showing up authentically in his career. Together, we dove into deep self-inquiry work, and he learned to tap into his true strengths while letting go of the masks he had worn for years. The result was a more confident, aligned leader who operated fully from his zone of genius.