Dear Leader,

They say the third time’s the charm. I’m hoping this third edition of The Leader Within is the best yet!

At the end of last week’s newsletter, I briefly touched on the four pillars of Responsible Leadership. I also shared how each plays a crucial role in shaping Responsible Leaders. These pillars are:

1. Awareness
2. Authenticity
3. Boldness
4. Trust

With it still being Pride Month, I wanted to reflect on arguably the most important of these four pillars:

Authenticity.

As a gay man who didn’t come out until I was 30 years old, this means a lot to me.

I’ve witnessed enough leaders in corporate settings and elsewhere struggle to lead as their authentic selves. Instead, they settled for a performative model of leadership.

In order to solve challenges big and small in our world, we need leaders with freedom to operate as themselves.

Responsible Leadership can't begin without authenticity

Being authentically you is one of the most important aspects of life.

Yet, the idea of being authentic, or “bringing your whole self” to work is often so overused that we lose sight of what it truly means to be authentic as leaders.

So, in a leadership sense, we must ask:

What does it mean to be authentic?

We can start with Merriam-Webster, which defines authentic as:

Not false or imitation: Real, Actual

From my experience, most leaders are anything but authentic at work.

Even I fell into this trap as a middle manager in my HR days (which I’ll share more of in a moment).

We think we have to be a “tough guy” or “cool gal” in our role as a boss.

Some of us fall into the trap of micromanagement and dictating our direct reports’ every move.

Others are excited about stepping into a leadership role. Yet, we fall right back into our old habits of taking on all the work ourselves instead of leading others. This is nothing more than aligning with a high-achieving persona some leaders never escape from.

Even more of us lose our own voices the higher we progress up the leadership ladder.

The vision we held for creating better workplaces and companies that do good in the world is easy to throw away when pressured to “toe the company line.”

You’ve probably worked for many companies that put out phony communications from leaders.
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Some of these leaders even dished out robotic responses at town halls when asked tough questions from their employees.

As leaders, we know some of the news we have to share won’t be positive. But if we want to lead responsibly, and for the benefit of all, we need to own our authentic voice and lead in a way that feels right to us.

We don’t want to be “by the book” leaders. This performative style of leadership usually comes with conditions or is worried about protecting a corporation’s ego.

Authentic leadership understands that real people are impacted by the decisions leaders make and meets the moment by approaching leadership with empathy for all customers, employees, and stakeholders affected.

Why authenticity pays off

When I managed people, I thought that fitting into a generic model of leadership made me strong.

In the years since, I’ve realized that living as my true self is much more empowering.

I’m sure most of us can agree that being authentic is a good thing. But what are the actual benefits of being authentic for leaders?

One benefit outlined in an analysis by Yemiscigil, Born, Snook, and Pate in the Leadership & Organization Development Journal (2022) is the idea of greater psychological well-being.

When leaders position themselves as they truly are, by fully expressing their values, strengths, weaknesses, and life stories, they are living in full alignment with their true self.

Leading in this way is shown to predict lower energy depletion and stress among leaders, as highlighted in the analysis.

Growing a business, developing your team, resolving conflict, and meeting expectations of customers and shareholders is challenging enough. Leaders can foster the capacity to meet these challenges by leading authentically.

I know first-hand how not living as my authentic self caused me tremendous burnout.

Had I felt capable of being my authentic self in work and life, I’m sure I would’ve lasted in a managerial role far longer than I did.

Another key benefit of leading authentically plays out in improved team performance.

When we show all parts of ourselves—including where we’ve failed as leaders—we create psychological safety for those we lead.

​A Gallup study suggests managers are responsible for up to 70% of variance in team engagement.

With managers playing such a key role in how those they lead feel about work, it’s an important call to action that managers should be authentically themselves. This invites team members to open up and propose new ideas, take risks, and feel respected and valued at work.

This not only benefits the well-being of those we lead, but ultimately allows the companies and organizations we work for to thrive.

Gallup also shows that businesses with top-quartile employee engagement levels across their database have a 23% increase in profitability and a 10% increase in customer loyalty.

My struggle with authenticity

Greater psychological well-being and better employee engagement are clear benefits of being authentic as leaders.

Yet my entire middle-management career was enmeshed in cognitive dissonance.

I’d try to meet the many challenging moments of leadership (especially during the pandemic) by being empathetic with my employees.

When they had to focus on their children’s education during the workday, I’d encourage them to do so. If other challenges came up for them or they were struggling with a task, I was ready and willing to take it on.

Yet, the empathy and support I showed with my employees was completely missing in my own life.

Because I wasn’t yet comfortable having constructive coaching or performance conversations with my employees in areas where they were falling short, I eliminated the obstacle by trying to do everything myself.

I tried to continue the habits that served me well as an individual contributor. But all it did was bury me in burnout, exhaustion, and a complete disinterest in my line of work. So much so that I eventually changed careers and left the HR field altogether.

As much as I wanted to help my employees, I never considered helping myself.

I didn’t care enough about my own well-being to share that I was struggling with my manager.

I kept playing the part of a confident, high-performing leader I’d always tried to follow in life.

And even though I needed to rewrite my leadership script, I didn’t have the right pen to do so.

Because I felt like I always had to perform at a high level, I traded authenticity as a leader for grueling 60-hour work weeks. Work became my identity, my refuge. So much so that after I was done with my HR work, I worked tirelessly on multiple fiction novels that I wrote and published over the course of 2015-2021.

My obsession with maintaining my high-performing persona cost me my personal life.

I hardly ever dated during this time. When I did, I didn’t let my curiosities of exploring sexual and romantic relationships with men play out. Instead, I suppressed them as much as possible and assured myself that the only path for a happy life was to get married to a woman.

I was afraid that if I lived my personal life as my true self (a gay man), that I would lose the love of my family and friends.

It got so bad that I was afraid I’d accidentally come out to work colleagues at a company holiday party after having a few drinks. So I continued playing the straight, high-performing leader who tried not to show any frustration with my lack of authenticity. But the burnout kept coming. My bitterness slowly leaked out of me in my interactions with other leaders and teams.

The big turnaround for me was when I finally left middle-management behind and came out at age 30 in 2021.

This wasn’t an easy decision, as I’d advanced to a high-paying role and was enjoying the lifestyle that the salary afforded me. Had I kept going, I likely would earn well over $200k a year at this point.

But I never would’ve become my true self.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about myself and have grown tremendously as a person.

I changed careers, got reacquainted with Buddhism, became vegan, and ultimately entered a wonderful Jungian life-coaching training program.

I’ve coached clients on embracing leadership, navigating burnout, and making meaningful progress in their careers in a way that feels authentic to who they truly are.

If I were to ever manage teams again, I’d have an entirely different playbook this time around.

I’d trust them to complete their work. I’d coach them through performance issues. All the while, I’d show my true self to everyone, express where I need help, and champion the work my team and I are doing.

I may have had to learn the importance of authenticity the hard way, but you don’t have to.

A call to embrace authenticity

Being authentic is just one pillar of Responsible Leadership.

Instead of embracing a leadership persona that comes out of a business school textbook, it’s time to own who you are.

As we talked about last week, that means integrating your shadow into your conscious personality.

Leaders that not only surface their strengths, but embrace the parts of themselves that they repress (like me embracing that I am a gay man and like to occasionally talk about my partner at work) experience greater psychological well-being.

Leading and living as your true self opens up a lot more capacity for you to tackle the biggest challenges on your plate, without burning out. Plus, when you lead authentically, you invite those you lead to show up as themselves, too.

I’d love to leave you with a powerful reflection question to consider as I close this week’s edition of The Leader Within.

What part of yourself are you holding back in your leadership? How might bringing it forward positively transform your influence?

I invite you to take some time to reflect on this, whether that be journaling or through meditation.

If you’re comfortable with it, I’d love to know what came up for you. Send me a reply and let me know!

Wishing you the best on your leadership journey this week,

Spenser

How I can help you

As a Leadership Coach birthing the way forward for Responsible Leadership, there are a few ways I can help you beyond reading this newsletter each week.

1. ​Step Into Your Leadership Discovery Call: This free 45-minute discovery call is meant for you to explore the leader you're becoming—and awaken the one already within. We'll chat about what feels aligned, what no longer fits, and what’s calling to emerge.You’ll walk away with greater clarity, renewed energy, and deep insight into stepping into a more aligned version of leadership—and how my coaching can support that transformation.
2. The Responsible Leadership Roundtable (new time!): Starting Thursday, July 10th @ 11:00 AM central time, this will be an intimate 1-hour conversation about the idea of Rebirth. We’ll discuss how to apply the theme of Rebirth in our leadership styles and in our businesses. Follow me on LinkedIn to stay updated on how to register.
3. ​1:1 Coaching: If you’re ready to take the leap with one of my customized 1:1 coaching programs for leaders, you can find more information by visiting the link.

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I’d also appreciate it if you forwarded this issue to a leader in your life that inspires you. If you received this email from someone else and would like to subscribe to The Leader Within, you can do so here.

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