“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.”
So goes the famous saying, often attributed to Oscar Wilde. A very powerful idea, and one that’s easy to accomplish, right? After all, who knows you better than you? So being yourself, being authentic, should be easy too.
Let’s be realistic, though. There are a few challenges to what, on the face of it, looks very simple.
First off, when we talk about knowing ourselves, what do we mean?
It comes down to values: the personal values we hold and that inform our actions. Unless we’ve spent time understanding and exploring our values and what they mean for how we make our way through the world, this is harder than it sounds.
Values act like a compass that helps us decide on a course of action. We notice them when they show up: the lift of acting in line with them, or the pain when we don’t.
Acting in line with our values feels good. We feel at ease with ourselves. Acting against them leaves us unsettled and uneasy. So identifying our values and following them through is central to maintaining our inner equilibrium and feeling good about ourselves.
A second consideration: even when we understand our values, can we always live them out fully?
Sometimes our values conflict. The desire to be a good parent and a diligent colleague, say. When work is pressured and busy, and family life is busy too, balancing those two can be a challenge. Something may have to give. So acting in line with our values can be a tricky balancing act, one that takes self-awareness and personal insight.
Third, not everyone is going to share our values. We may be lucky enough to work in a team with common values, but the peculiar human paradox is that while we may hold values of teamwork and commonality, unless we practise the skills of insight and self-management, self-interest and personal advancement can come into play.
The “dark triad” of personality traits, Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy, are things we’ve probably all encountered. We may even have shown some of these behaviours ourselves.
Some contend that these traits serve a purpose in business and leadership. But having hidden agendas, being absorbed by your own importance and seeking to manipulate others is the opposite of being an authentic leader and colleague, and it has a predictable and inevitable outcome. Trust and bonds fracture, and teams and relationships fragment as the manipulation comes to light.
Ego may promote an internal narrative that your poker face is better than everyone else’s, that you can run a manipulative game plan nobody will see through. Sooner or later, though, the marvel that is the human mind pieces together the elements of your behaviour and recognises the underlying game. Your tell, the behaviour and demeanour that reveals your true intentions, is spotted, and your bluff is called.
That simple analogy explains why authenticity matters. If we approach leadership and our interactions like a poker match, seeking to bluff, manipulate and win against those around us, we may succeed for a while. But inevitably our hand is revealed, and the trust and collaboration that are so central to high-performing teams and collective success suffer.
Here’s a lightbulb moment: people don’t like being manipulated.
The research bears this out. Volmer, Koch and Göritz (2016) highlighted the particularly damaging effects of Machiavellianism and psychopathy on employee wellbeing and career success when these behaviours show up in leaders.
So the case for authenticity is clear.
Being authentic in our approach, promoting transparency, basing how we lead on self-awareness, self-management and stable, predictable behaviour, and building trust through values-led, committed action, all feed into an environment where psychological safety thrives. And where there is psychological safety and trust, high performance flourishes.
Acting authentically not only lets us feel more content in ourselves. It lets others trust, feel safe, and move towards collaboration and collective effort. From there, collective problem-solving and innovation can blossom. Different skill sets, perspectives and insights produce novel solutions to seemingly intractable problems, and the conditions for success, however we define it, can thrive.
So here’s my challenge to you. Know thyself. Explore and understand your values. Harness the power of ethical, trust-enhancing behaviour and practise authenticity. Then map the outcomes and give yourself the evidence of what being authentic can do.