The Power of Authenticity

Do you ever feel as though you are being told something, over and over again? Like God, or the universe, is trying to get a message to you? I feel that there has been a certain theme running through my week.

Authenticity.

But what does authenticity actually mean? Well, lucky for you, I looked it up: Authenticity is the quality of being genuine or real. Another definition is this: Being true to one’s own personality, spirit or character. Being sincere and authentic with no pretensions.

Being authentic isn’t spouting your thoughts and opinions, it’s being real about you, about your feelings and experiences.

This week at work I’ve had a few deep and ‘real’ conversations with some parents who were sharing about life and parenthood. (If you are new around here, I have the honour of running a large baby and toddler group from our church as my day job, you can read my ‘about me’ page here.)

Being a parent is a tough job, and our group is a safe place for parents and grandparents to bring their little people to play, as well as being loved and supported by our amazing team.

With me being a little further down the parenting road than most of our families, and having lived through a range of life experiences, there are certain situations that I am able to speak about and relate to.

When I am open and vulnerable, I extended an invitation for others to share the ‘real stuff’ by speaking about my own.

Authenticity and vulnerability go hand in hand.

Often, being real means being vulnerable. It can be revealing something you’ve been through, a weakness you have, or just sharing how you feel about a particular situation.

Authenticity is a magnet.

People want real. In a world where it seems that there is a filter over everything to make life seem so much more perfect/flawless/better than everyone else’s, we crave real.

We are naturally attracted to people who are who they say they are, because they are trustworthy and honest. We know that our internal B.S. detectors start going off when someone isn’t being genuine.

You can spot the real people. They are the ones who seem comfortable in their own skin, but aren’t always the loudest in the room. When they speak people listen. They are the ones who have deep friendships, because they’re great at the deeper level conversations, and aren’t afraid of them.

They are the ones who naturally talk about their own life experience as if it’s no big deal, then you find that somehow you have divulged a personal story that you never meant to speak of. They are the ones who make you feel like a normal person when perhaps before you felt that you were the only one in your situation.

We crave this realness on such a deep level that sometimes we don’t realise it. Think about the kinds of people you find that you naturally gravitate toward, is it because they’re authentic?

Vulnerability is a strength.

It’s a common misconception that being vulnerable, whether it’s sharing something you struggle with, or even something that caused you pain, makes you seem weak. (Obviously exercise wisdom in how, when and what you share with whom.)

When we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we show ourselves to be human, a real person who isn’t as together or as perfect as it may seem on the outside.

When we get comfortable with vulnerable, we become more approachable, we do away with shallow relationships and lean into deeper ones.

It takes guts and strength to do so, to own your story and to share it.

This week I was able to share part of my own story with a couple of mums, about parenting through post natal depression. It felt like we knew each other so much more, it connected us.

With one particular mum, it made her feel that she wasn’t alone in what she was experiencing, that like me, many others have gone through it before her, and our children will be just fine despite our struggles. It gave her permission to talk about the hard stuff that she didn’t feel great about, and somehow when we do this, as my friend Caz says, ‘it diminishes our shame’.

Our conversation validated her feelings and encouraged her, that she’ll get through this, and it gave her strength in our shared experience.

Authenticity connects people.

When we are real, we connect, when we connected to others, we are stronger. I know I write about this a lot, but we are built for community. We are created to be connected to each other on more than just a surface level. When people are integrated into a community, their needs are met, and there is such a strength in their unity.

As I said above, the things that connect us are the common experiences we share. We can only know what those are, if we allow ourselves to be open hearted and vulnerable.

A friend of mine had a very sudden opportunity to go on a trip to Berlin recently. She had only a few days to prepare for it, and felt a little anxious as she barely knew any of those she was travelling with.

On her return she was telling a group of us about her time away. As she spoke about it all she was beaming. She told us all how well she had gotten to know this random collection of people over the course of a few days. She told us how she had made such deep connections that she now called this group of people, friends.

How did I this happen in such a short amount of time?

They were thrown together and in their shared experience, they allowed themselves to be open and real with each other. They were able to create community between them in those few days because they made the choice to and we are wired that way.

When we are willing to be authentic, we liberate ourselves and it inspires and touches others around us. – Mike Robbins. TEDx Greenbrook School

Leading from a place of authenticity.

We are all leaders in some way or other. We all have influence in big and small ways in all the places we spend time, work, live. We each have the ability to bring a positive impact in the spaces we occupy. I just want to let that sit with you for a minute…

When I took over my job from my amazing predecessor, I didn’t really want it. I would have happily stayed as her Number 2, and supported her role, for a lot longer.

I lacked confidence and felt that I didn’t really know what I was doing. Apart from loving the families… I knew how to do that well. I worried that my different teams across the days would see through me, and know that I really wasn’t up to it. I didn’t want to be the one in charge, telling my team of volunteers what to do or to have to make all the decisions.

In the early days, I decided that it was best that I communicated to my team exactly how I felt. I needed them to know that I was out of my depth and wasn’t really confident about leading them at all.

Do you know what happened? It broke down barriers.

Some of them I didn’t know that well, as we hadn’t worked that particular day together before, and I wasn’t sure if they would stay. My vulnerability gave them permission to speak into my life, they gathered around me and supported me as I found my feet and grew into my role.

Where I feared that they would have absolutely no respect for me, they had much more. Being real enabled me to build strong relationship with my team, even though we are all so different, we share the love and vision of running our toddler group together.

Being a reluctant leader, having to fumble my way along and lean into my team, has taught me far more about leadership than I ever expected.

I watched a TED talk by Mike Robbins, who is an author of five books, a speaker and teacher who empowers people and organisations to be more successful. In this TED talk, Mike shared a story about leading from a place of authenticity, you can watch that here.

Here is my summary: He spoke about a leader of a large team who weren’t working particularly well together. It transpired that their boss intimidated them all, and most felt that they couldn’t speak up in meetings or give feedback.

Mike Robins (who was facilitating this particular meeting), gave everyone an opportunity to be real for a moment. Using a favourite analogy of an iceberg, pointing to the tip of it. He said that everyone knew this much about them, but he wanted to bring the water line down a little, by repeating and filling out this statement: “If you really knew me, you’d know…….”

One by one they began. It took the third person to really open up, which then gave others permission to do the same. One man asked to go again, as he’d not shared all he wanted to. He said how intimidated he was by his boss and had things to add to meetings, that he didn’t feel he could.

Then it was the boss’s turn to speak. He asked if everyone else felt the same. They did. He firstly apologised (which it seemed he rarely did), and then told them all about the way his father raised them, how tough he was on him and his brothers, pushing them and pushing them. He shared that all his brothers, like himself, were successful in what they do. He told them that he didn’t like it then, and because that was what he learned, that’s how he leads.

The rest of the meeting looked completely different. By being honest about how they felt, they better understood each other. This resulted in them being more connected and this changed the atmosphere amongst the team.

We can lead from a place of authenticity and vulnerability. Those qualities will make us be great at what we do, by have the trust from those we work with and the relationship behind it, to get through hard time, difficult conversations and beyond.

If faith is important to you, you’ll know that we are all called to be authentic and real in our own life. It’s in our humility and authenticity that we connect to, and love people the way the life of Jesus modelled this to us.

There is power in authenticity:

• It draws people like a magnet, we are drawn to genuine people, because the world needs real.
• It is a strength. To show your true self means being comfortable with who you are, and allow yourself to be vulnerable, is a brave thing to do. It also give strength to others.
• It connects people. It creates deeper relationships, sometimes very quickly, within families, between friends, teams and it grows community.
• It makes you a better leader. Authenticity makes you a leader that your team knows, trusts and someone they can relate to work hard for.

How will you choose to be more authentic?

Thanks for taking the time to stop and read my blog post! If you enjoyed it, please like it and give it a share to your friends and on your social pages.

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To see more of my stuff, you can find it all here.

Sending you love friend,

Carrie xxx

Photo credit :: Toa Heftiba / Unsplash, WordSwag