Authentic Leaders are predictable, clear, and confident in their interactions with teams and how they operate when no one is looking.

Authentic leaders are leaders who:

  • Have a calm consistency in how they conduct themselves and lead their teams. They create consistent and predictable results.
  • Create clear accountability for the work that is done.
  • Have a positive influence with just about everyone they interact with, especially with their team. They respect and trust others as they are respected and trusted by others.
  • Have strong working relationships with their teams, peers, and other leaders and are intentional about their personal relationships with individuals on their team.

As I’ve studied for decades the patterns of highly effective leaders, I suggest that there are seven key disciplines of Authentic Leaders.

The Seven Disciplines

  1. Self-Leadership: Authentic Leaders continuously learn and grow, effectively prioritize their work, and follow through on commitments to themselves.
  2. Vision: Authentic Leaders create a shared vision with the team and use it as a tool to get the most important work done.
  3. Goals: Authentic Leaders effectively leverage goals to create a sense of urgency and to set the team up for success.
  4. Decision Making: Authentic Leaders strategically shift decision-making to team members while simultaneously increasing trust among team members.
  5. Communication: Authentic Leaders listen patiently and know when and how to speak persuasively.
  6. Delegation & Accountability: Authentic Leaders delegate strategically and use clear systems to hold team members accountable.
  7. Relationships: Authentic Leaders invest in building professional relationships with team members rooted in respect and trust.

Working with leaders in organizations of all sizes and industries, most leaders excel at several of these disciplines but lack mastery in all of the disciplines.

The result is uneven leadership.

That’s why many leaders try to play to their strengths: maximizing their gifts while minimizing their weaknesses. But that approach only works for a time. In business, like life, we need to show up consistently for our teams to have a consistent, effective experience and ultimately produce impactful results.

The opposite of an Authentic Leader is an “entitled leader”

Leaders can go down one of two paths. They can become a leader who is effective or become a leader who is ineffective—but don’t know why.

Leaders who struggle with their leadership lack one or more of these three things:

  • Skills
  • Tools
  • Discipline

Leaders who struggle to lead their team are entitled leaders: leaders in title only.

Entitled Leaders:

  • Are inconsistent in how they lead their teams, inconsistent in how they respond to situations and are inconsistent in the key metric results that they produce.
  • Often rely on their “boss” title or lead through intimidation to get people to produce results.
  • Foster a culture of distrust and disloyalty.
  • Are often secretly overwhelmed and are filled with self-doubt. They believe they are fooling their team members, but the truth is, the team knows when a leader is filled with self-doubt.

CAUTION About Entitled Leaders: I’m not here to villainize entitled leaders. I used to be one!

My point here is: entitled leaders who want to become Authentic Leaders can be by the simple act of choosing to improve and adopting the seven disciplines. This transformation won’t happen overnight. Old patterns of behavior need to be interrupted. New skills need to be learned. New habits and tools need to be instilled. It takes work, but it is absolutely worth it.

Instead of self-doubt, Authentic Leaders are filled with purpose.

Instead of feeling like “If I want it to be done right I have to do it myself,” Authentic Leaders watch their teams accomplish goal after goal after goal.

Instead of apologizing for inappropriate behavior, Authentic Leaders experience greater levels of trust and mutual respect among team members, their peers, and other leaders.

Do you want to be an Authentic Leader?

In my teaching and coaching, I work with leaders to master the seven disciplines of Authentic Leaders. I’m hired to conduct workshops with leadership teams or to work one on one with a leader.

Together, we can assess the areas of the biggest opportunity for you and your team. The next step is to connect with me to learn the very best ways I bring value to you, your leaders and your organization.

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