Leadership Just by Being Yourself

Leadership is all about being yourself and demonstrating personal authenticity rather than learning some formula from a text book. Aspiring leaders therefore need to be true to themselves; not slavishly following others ideas. Role models can be powerful and it doesn’t hurt to model excellence when found; executive coaching is based on this premise.

Real leaders are prepared to reveal their weakness, because they know they are not super-human. Obviously this doesnt mean technical weaknesses or functional failings; this would fatally flaw their performance. Instead, what is meant is that leaders should reveal their personality quirks maybe they are bad tempered in the morning, are somewhat shy with new people or a little disorganized. Such admissions show they are human and this resonates with others confirming that the leader is a person not merely a role-holder.

Revealing their true selves, leaders can allow others to know and help them and this makes for better teamwork; followers can also feel better if theyve got something to complain about. Thus by sharing at least some of their weaknesses, leaders can prevent others from inventing damaging...