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Empower Your Life, Your People And Your Organisation With FIRO Theory

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7 Steps To Authentic Leadership.

©2012 Pat Young

All rights reserved. One copy of 7 Steps To Authentic Leadereship may be printed for per-sonal use only on condition that the file was downloaded from www.edgecon.co.uk/7Steps Otherwise no part of this material may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, trans-mitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or translated into other languages, withour the prior written permission of Pat Young . This material may not be photocopied even within the terms of the Copyright Li-cencsing Agency Ltd. All trademarks and copyrights acknowledged.

Published by Learning Edge Consulting, The Lees, Horsham Rd, Crawley, West Sussex. RH11 8PN

If you have a colleague, associate or friend who would find this bok useful, please direct them to www.edgecon.co.uk/7Steps where they may download their own copy. Thank You.

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Acknowledgements.

Many people helped in the preparation, compilation and production of this eBook, giving of their time and expertise generously, I am very grateful to all of them. Deserving of spe-cial mention are Christina Bachini, Geoff Howe, Susan Fairclough and Deborah Mitchell, for helpful editing and technical input, suggestions to improve clarity, style and readability, and for sanity checks. I am in continual awe of my wife, best friend, love of my life and soul mate Meg, for her ceaseless efforts in correcting my occasional odd use of our English language, for her en-couragement, love, support and vast technical input on writing, psychology and FIRO Theory.

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“7 Steps To Authentic Leadership”

There is no one who doubts your leadership ability… more than you do yourself!

If you can agree with me on this one point, let us make the move to the next level.

First of all let’s look at some of the facts.

How you feel and what you believe about yourself as a leader has nothing to do with func-tional skills. These are very easy to acquire and if you have been in a leadership role for any length of time you have already mastered these.

Effective leadership succeeds or fails in the inner space between your ears—in your head!

The biggest barrier you have to overcome is the voice of self doubt, which only you can hear, and probably only you believe!

I have two questions for you. Think carefully about your answers before you move on to the next section.

If there was a way for you to overcome the inner voice of self doubt, easily and permanent-ly, would you choose to do it?

What would you do if there were no beliefs holding you back—if you weren’t holding your-self back?

This eBook shows you the 7 crucial steps you need to take en route to becoming an authen-tic leader.

By following the 7 Steps you will develop the leadership qualities of courage, creativity, honesty, resilience and resourcefulness. You will acquire tools, techniques, strategies and the willingness to take risks and communicate in more authentic ways. This is what builds trust, loyalty, respect and understanding—the keys to effective relationships, authentic leadership and high performance.

The benefits of practising the 7 Steps To Authentic Leadership include:

Learning how to create powerful, elegant solutions to business challenges—get things done easily and effectively•Developing the resilience and agility to create out-of-the-box problem solving skills•Improving relationships, team performance, loyalty and cohesion•Leadingandinfluencingwithgreaterauthenticity,accountabilityandintegrity,thuscommandingrespectandtrust•Increasedselfconfidence,lessstress,betterwork/lifebalance•Facilitating real employee engagement and motivation •Releasing discretionary emotional capital—the passion and loyalty money alone cannot buy•Facilitating results to achieve business targets•Increasingrevenue,marginsandprofitability•

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“Transformational, life-changing results - how? Authentic Leadership Breakthrough- that’s how.” [Hunting: 2011]1

Just before we begin to explore each of the 7 Steps To Authentic Leadership, let’s take a few minutes to explore some of the Consequences of Inauthentic Leadership.

Although there have always been bad leaders, since the worldwide financial collapse, which began in 2007/2008, the media has been dominated by stories of strategic leadership which appears to be driven by greed, self interest, competitiveness, mendacity, testosterone, ego and power, combined with a wholesale lack of empathy and compassion. Politicians—our elected leaders—consistently display a blatant lack of transparency, courage and ethical virtue, and then wonder why the public at large believe that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

Nearer to home, leaders are tasked to achieve more, with fewer people and fewer resources; including their own organisation’s current unwillingness to invest in developing them or their reports.

Organisations are faced with constant commercial demand for ever lower costs whilst at the same time consumers demand ever higher quality goods and services.

Increasingly, leaders [and those they lead] are suffering from stress, depression or burnout, and whilst some leaders recognise that employees, more than practically anything else, want to be a part of something meaningful and worthwhile, many feel impotent and inca-pable of facilitating a sense of pride, purpose, engagement and meaning.

It also appears that some leaders, often described as ‘bad’ or ‘toxic’, feel that vision, pur-pose, satisfaction, meaning and a sense of belonging are totally irrelevant compared to the day-to-day responsibilities of getting the job done.

In some environments inauthentic—counterfeit, antisocial, task driven, competitive, un-sympathetic, even bullying leadership, is valued because, in the short term at least, it ap-pears to deliver bottom line results. When these leaders move on, as they do regularly, it is left to someone else to try to pick up the pieces.

Poor leadership is adversely affecting employees’ workplace attitudes, experiences and mo-rale, debilitating their effectiveness.

Recent research conducted by the Chartered Management Institute [CMI] found that 55% of employees do not think their managers are competent or confident enough in their roles, yet at the same time 38% report that their boss thinks they are good at what they do. Further, 39% believe that the behaviours of their boss increases stress levels, and 34% also believe that their boss negatively affects enjoyment of their job while 10% blame their boss for declining health. [Howard: 2011]2

The same survey revealed that 70% of managers reported a drop in morale over the past six months!

Howard noted that the findings were similar to earlier data which found that 44% of em-ployees felt unmotivated in their job, and which highlighted the difference and impact a good leader made to staff motivation and morale.

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Leaders are expected to bear the responsibility of providing their employees with support during difficult times, yet over a third (37%) of managers who went through a redundancy or restructuring process did not feel equipped to deal with it. When asked what would have helped the process, more than two thirds said they were concerned about motivating their remaining staff (67%) while more than half (52%) would have welcomed more peer group support from their colleagues.

The unavoidable conclusion is that management and leadership failure is undermining employees’ workplace attitudes and experiences. This is having a detrimental impact on morale, motivation, cohesion, performance and output.

Providing more robust support and leadership development by way of coaching, mentor-ing and training for line managers and leaders, is the solution to unlocking their motiva-tional capabilities. Coaching and training quickly helps leaders to overcome the stress, turmoil and struggle associated with adapting to change. It helps them to deal with the need to be more adaptable, resilient and flexible; more self confident, more open and less stressed by the rigours of the job.

High levels of dissatisfaction are by no means inevitable. Authentic Leaders have a signifi-cant, meaningful and positive impact on morale. For example, 77% of those surveyed who thought their managers dealt very well with the economic crisis, felt valued, reinforcing the importance of managers having the skills, training and tools in place to support their staff. Of those employees who thought their manager coped very poorly during the recession, 85% said they did not feel valued, 83% are demotivated and over half are actively searching for a new job. [Howard: 2011]2

The mission-critical issues of engagement, motivation and commitment are being over-looked by many organisations—just over half of employees interviewed (53%) said they felt valued in their job. [Howard: 2011]2

The practice of authentic leadership has an immediate and positive impact on culture and morale. Robust, emotionally intelligent leaders, who are equipped to deal with stressful situations and know how to reward, encourage and re-engage demotivated employees, have a better chance of keeping their workforce fully committed. To enable this, organisa-tions need to provide leaders, managers and employees with the skills, training and tools to ensure everyone is motivated and engaged. This is critical if the public and private sector is to reduce the threat of ‘ghost turnover’ in the UK, where demotivated employees have already decided to leave, but remain in post, lingering until they find another job!

[NB. The data in this section has been gathered from a number of sources in the public domain, including newspaper and magazine articles, radio and television broadcast news items and the internet, I have done my best to reference these sources in the relevant section at the end of the book.]

People Join A Company But Leave Their Boss!

Chip Conley CEO of hotel group Joie De Vivre, when interviewed in 2007 reported that “Every survey that’s been done in the U.S. tends to show money is not first, second, or third, it’s the fourth place reason why people leave their jobs. The primary motivator of disgruntlement at work is the feeling of not being recognised. People join a company but they leave their boss! The bottom line is the ultimate motivator that says “I gotta to get out of here” is not that you’re underpaid, it’s that you feel under-respected or under-recognised. There’s a lot of research that shows this. Unfortunately, the practice of management tends not to take account of that.” [Conley: 2007]3

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However, there is one light in the midst of the gloom. I don’t know about you, but I cannot remember a time in my life when Authentic Leadership was more important than it is right now at every level including yours.

Having explored the costs of Inauthentic Leadership let us now turn to the benefits of Au-thentic Leadership.

Authentic Leadership recognises that it is people who make businesses flourish and people who create and maintain competitive business advantages.

People follow Authentic Leaders because they are consistent, reliable and strong. When Authentic Leaders are pushed to go beyond their beliefs and values, to ignore or disregard their own internal ‘bottom lines’ they will not compromise.

Authentic Leaders are committed to their own personal and professional growth and learn-ing because they believe that becoming a leader is the journey of a lifetime, not one single event.

Underpinning the Authentic Leadership approach is the following belief. Teams and or-ganisations thrive when individuals are self-aware, skilful at communicating self respon-sibly and truthfully, conscious and accountable regarding choices, living and leading cou-rageously, pursuing meaningful goals for themselves and adept at encouraging others to follow their example.

Authentic Leaders give those they lead a calling—not just a job! [Conley: 2007]3

Conley realised some time ago, as his hitherto successful business was in danger of col-lapse, that he had to do something drastic to save his business—he writes about this most eloquently in ‘Peak’. He recounts that one day, feeling very down, he visited a book shop looking for some inspirational writing and help. Whilst browsing in the ‘self help’ section of the store he came upon a description of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs4 which he picked up and began to read. He became captivated by Maslow’s ideas and had an ‘Ah-Ha!’ moment of enlightenment, when he realised that by applying Maslow’s ideas he could revi-talise and save his business.

Maslow is probably more widely remembered for his famous ‘Hierarchy Of Needs’ than for any other aspects of his theories. Conley realised that the highest needs level of the hierar-chy, the ‘Peak’ which gave him the title of his book, was actually describing the conditions which would enable him to turn his business around from almost certain failure to success.

Self actualisation is the term Maslow used to describe the highest level of his pyramid of needs and declared that when human beings were operating at this level they would have ‘peak experiences’. Conley realised that by enabling employees to find their calling and a sense of meaning in what they do, they were more likely to be operating at the top of the pyramid.

If you fail to provide a ‘calling’ for your people you run the risk of creating reports who are disengaged with the business and its objectives.

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Engagement is the ‘holy grail’ of leadership.

Engagement = commitment = motivation = productivity.

The most important driver of engagement and commitment is not money; as we discussed earlier, that comes way down the list. It is significance, recognition, and a sense of being val-ued which generates commitment and engagement. Authentic Leaders therefore see their primary task as the communication to their employees and reports that they are valued.

The Ghost In The Machine

When an employee is engaged they are visible, present and fully involved in the business.

Workers who are not engaged are best likened to Ghosts! A Ghost Employee, in this con-text, is an employee who is present merely for the purposes of clocking in, clocking out and collecting a pay packet. However, they were not always ghosts. At one time they were com-mitted, ambitious and enthusiastic about the business and their future in it. But somewhere along the way, this all changed. Perhaps they are just simply lazy and uninterested. This is highly unlikely in my experience. A much more likely explanation is that their ghost-like status is down to a failure of leadership, a failure to excite and ignite their passion and com-mitment. This is not necessarily their present leader’s fault, it may well be a legacy of earlier inept leadership. But if you are the current leader it is your responsibility to do something about it; and, yes, ghosts can be brought back to life. Using the principles of Authentic Leadership you will unleash their passion, and productivity will soar.

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“Authentic Leaders work hard at understanding and developing themselves. They use formal and informal support networks to get honest feedback and to help ground themselves. They temper their need for public acclaim and financial reward with strong intrinsic motivations.” [HBR, February 2007]5

The remainder of this book describes the 7 Steps To Authentic Leadership in detail. Many of the steps also contain practical exercises to enable you to begin to use this approach to transform your leadership. Towards the end of the book you will also discover a simple tool, which you can use to initiate a self-managed development programme to enable you to facilitate and monitor your development of the 7 Steps. I hope you enjoy the journey.

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Authenticity—Step 1

“The cost of being unreal is cripplingly high”[Schutz:1984]6

“This above all—to thine own self be true.” [Shakespeare]7

Authenticity is the foundation of the 7 steps approach to leadership. It is the most important step of all and although at first you will be very challenged by it, you will quickly find that by absorbing and deploying what you discover here you will start to transform your leadership, not to mention every other area of your life. Many people report back to me that using this step feels like taking a huge weight off their minds.

Leadership begins with knowing and acknowledging who you are and what your core values are. As Bob Terry says… “Authenticity is knowing, and acting on, what is true and real inside yourself, your team and your organisation AND knowing and acting on what is true and real in the world. It is not enough to walk one’s talk if one is headed off, or leading one’s organisation, community or nation, off a cliff!”

Authentic Leadership therefore begins with being authentic to ourselves—the necessary first step! It is about being truthful and self aware, acknowledging our thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears and the impact these have on our behaviour towards and on our interactions with others.

“The biggest dirty little secret in business” [Welch: 2005]8

Jack Welch ex CEO of GE, now retired after more than twenty years at the helm of one of the worlds most successful companies, has written a book containing his business philoso-phy. It is called ‘Winning’. The book contains the distillation of what he considers made him and the business he ran successful.

Chapter two is particularly relevant here. It is entitled ‘Candour’, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as ‘the quality of being open and honest’. The subtitle of the chapter is “The biggest dirty little secret in business”; this chapter comes remarkably close philosophi-cally to the first of the seven steps to Authentic Leadership.

Welch says right at the beginning of that chapter; “ I have always been a huge proponent of candour. In fact I talked it up to GE audiences for more than twenty years. But since retir-ing I have come to realise that I underestimated its rarity. If fact, I would call candour the biggest dirty little secret in business. What a huge problem it is. Lack of candour basically blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer”.

He goes on to accept that to expect complete candour is probably unrealistic and he also makes clear that he is not talking about what he calls “malevolent dishonesty” but rather he is describing how all too often “people do not express themselves with frankness”. He describes how people in organisations play it safe by not engaging in straightforward com-munication and by not opening up; instead they keep quiet to make people feel better or to

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avoid challenge and conflict, to maintain appearances. He also describes how people hoard information and keep things to themselves asserting that… “lack of candour permeates almost every aspect of business”.

“Without Self Awareness All Our Actions Are Subject To Self Deception” [Schutz]9

Trust, the noun , is defined as “belief or confidence in, or reliance on, the truth, goodness, character, power, ability, etc of someone or something”. [Chambers English Dictionary]

Earlier I extolled the positive benefits of the application of Authentic Leadership generally. The specific benefits of you becoming more authentic in your leadership are potentially even bigger for your career and your future.Can you seriously expect those you lead to be loyal, motivated, committed, to go the extra mile, to do whatever it takes to achieve your business goals, consistently and over time if you are not candid with them?

Let me be explicit about this. If you are not truthful, the consequences are that you will not be trusted. If you are not trusted, your leadership ability is seriously compromised, perhaps permanently.

However, if the people you lead trust you, if they know that you consistently rely on the truth, I promise you that this fact will over time generate loyalty, dedication and commit-ment which money alone simply cannot buy.

The first step to Authentic Leadership is to develop your willingness and ability to be truthful. For most people this is much more difficult than they first imagine. Being truthful requires personal courage and taking risks, which for some people are too big. Being truth-ful also requires a very high degree of self awareness, a deep understanding of yourself and of how you operate!

“Self awareness is the most important emotional competency required in the creation of a successful career. So vital is an awareness of the self that the manager who is unaware of his or her blind spots or how they impact on others is likely to become a walking disaster in the workplace, a leader who may lead the troops over the cliff face.” [Koonce: 1994]10

Fortunately for us Will Schutz has developed a range of extremely accessible and usable tools which make the processes of developing our self awareness and our ability to be can-did or truthful, very much easier. The first of these, Three Levels of Awareness, is described below. Schutz has provided the tools and the methods; you need to supply the courage and the commitment.

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The three levels of Truth, developing deep self awareness.

Level One: I tell the truth—authenticity

Level one is a measure of my self awareness and a measure of how I relate to you. When I allow myself to be aware of myself, I am being truthful with myself. Self awareness is the acknowledgement of my current feelings state and of my current thought processes. I know, I am aware of and I acknowledge what is going on for me. I know myself, I am in touch with myself.

When I let myself know and acknowledge what I am experiencing, thinking, and feeling—I am being truthful with myself. Self Awareness, authenticity, therefore is about knowing the self. The meaning and definition is perhaps so obvious that it is easy to miss its importance.

I am operating at level one if in my interactions with you I am truthful. At this level I choose to share my full, complete and honest awareness with you. I tell the truth. I share my thinking and ideas with you, my opinions, views and values. This may include telling you what I know, or acknowledging what I don’t know; telling you what and how I am feel-ing at the moment, within myself, about you, and/or about the situation we find ourselves in.

At level one I am open towards you too, I want to hear your thoughts and opinions. I want to know how you are feeling. I am willing to engage in discussion and dialogue. I listen to you. I pay attention to you.

Note that self awareness is of itself neither good nor bad, the feelings created by self aware-ness may range from pleasurable and enlivening through to intensely uncomfortable and all points in between. Of course I will exercise judgement about what aspects of my aware experience I choose to tell you. If I were to tell you every single thought that entered my head we would never get anything done at all.

Level Two: I lie—duplicity and self deception

At level two I deceive myself—I distort reality! Let’s say for example that I am run-ning a development group and someone in the group asks me a question or challenges me about some aspect of what we are doing. Perhaps this causes me to feel uncomfortable, or I don’t know the answer to the question—but feel I should.

As a result of this I may start to become defensive, worry about my capabilities, begin to fear looking stupid and feel threatened. Rather than acknowledge the truth and the dis-comfort I am feeling, I distort my experience, and tell myself instead that you are a difficult group member—a trouble maker!

When I operate at this level I am choosing to deceive myself. I do this by diminishing my awareness, by distorting my experience and by becoming defensive. I may lie to myself—tell myself ‘stories’ about my relationship with you. I am liable to narrow my thinking, harden my points of view, perhaps even become belligerent towards ideas I don’t want to hear. I may also distort what you say to me. I am liable to misinterpret your intentions, react defensively to your views and ideas. I may become resistant either passively by becoming sullen and non communicative, or aggressively by becoming angry and argumentative. I am likely to be resistant to change.

I distort the truth by [often silently] blaming you for how I am feeling and making you into

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someone who is being difficult. A simple and very common distortion, this may cause me to re-calibrate my relationship with you, now that I have labelled you as a trouble maker.

I am not suggesting that every time we experience each other as being difficult, it is a distor-tion, but it is far more common than we realise.

Operating at level two—I may also lie to you, that is, tell you something which is not true. I am deceiving you by distorting the truth and of course I am hoping that you will accept my distortion of the truth as the truth, for if you knew I was lying to you what would your reaction be?

When I lie to you I am trying to convince you that what I am saying is true—I am trying to deceive you. I may also tell myself stories (lie to myself) to justify my behaviour, such as “it’s for their own good”, “they would not be able to cope with the truth” and so on. A lie is a distortion of reality—it is not true.

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Level Three: I conceal—denial, withholding.

The third level, withholding from myself, is denial. In the example above this would mean that I deny any discomfort that I am feeling, by blocking my feelings out in some way. Operating at this level I withhold from myself by making myself blind to my experiences. Self denial can range from not allowing myself to see what is—being blind to what is—up to and including deliberate denial. At this point withholding from the self begins to overlap with level two.

I can deny positive as well as negative feelings. I can deny my skills and abilities just as eas-ily as I deny my defects. I can deny myself adequate rest and recreation. I can deny myself rewarding and fulfilling relationships, quality time with my family and friends, a healthy work/life balance and lifestyle.

If I don’t tell you what I am aware of, I am withholding from you.

Just to be clear, suppose for example you asked me if I know about an impending restruc-ture, or a new product launch, and as it happens I do, but I tell you I don’t know. That is a lie! I may withhold what I know about the impending restructure, or the new product launch, but telling you I don’t know when I do, is a lie.

When I operate at this level I choose not to tell you of my experiences, or share my feelings with you. I withhold. I don’t let you see me, or know much about who I am. I may have many secrets, I may blank you out. I may blinker myself to your ideas and views.

So what?

Why is self awareness, being truthful with ones self so important? Perhaps the following will help to illustrate. The Harvard Business Review published an article in the February 2007 edition entitled ‘Discovering your authentic leadership’ In this article the authors as-sert that

“we all have the capacity to inspire and empower others. But first we must be willing to devote ourselves to our own personal growth and development as leaders” [George et al, HBR 2007] 11

In their search to identify the characteristics which define authentic leadership the authors concluded that knowing your authentic self was the key. They also reported that “When the seventy five members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self awareness. Yet many leaders, especially those early in their careers, are trying so hard to establish themselves in the world that they leave little time for self-exploration.”

This endorses Schutz’s ideas. He adds the following…

“When I tell the truth, my body feels good. When I lie or with-hold the truth, the lie or withhold expresses itself in my body as discomfort … I also get clues to my own truth through feedback from other people about how they sense my behaviour. The more I tell the truth, the healthier I am. Lies and withholds lead me …

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to distancing in relationships, to loss of motivation, to burn out, to illness and absenteeism, and to declining productivity on the job.” [Schutz: 1994]12

Self awareness is the greatest antidote to defensive behaviour.

I can think of very few times in my life when my defensive behaviour has actually worked in my best interests. Most defensive behaviour is counterproductive, it works against us and often facilitates counter-defensive behaviours in others. It quickly escalates minor upsets into major interpersonal conflicts, or deeply buried and unspoken, often per-nicious, resentments and grudges.

Interestingly lying to people [level two], especially if they find out they have been lied to, can have the same effect.

Self awareness is the perfect antidote because it buys us time. Self awareness enables us to see well in advance when we are getting ourselves into situations or circumstances where we are likely to become defensive and gives us time to do something different, something more productive, something more rewarding.

Being true to our self—Self Concordance.

When we act in concordance with our personal values and beliefs we are being true to ourselves. When we act in a manner which is contrary to, or goes against, our personal values and beliefs we are selling ourselves out!

If we do this often enough it can have disastrous consequences for our well being. There have been various, wide ranging studies carried out, in some cases across many different cultures, which have focused on the concept of ‘self concordance’— where people feel that they behave and act in ways which fit with their personal interests and values. “Self con-cordant individuals typically evidence higher subjective well-being.” [Sheldon et al: 2004]12

Sheldon found that people who are self-concordant, true to themselves, have measurably better well being than those who are not. The 7 Steps Approach asserts that being aligned to and owning one’s actions, behaving congruently and acting authentically may be important for the well being of most if not all humans.

Will Shakespeare said…

”This above all—to thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou cans’t not then be false to any man.” [Shakespeare]13

Will Schutz said…

”Keep Telling The Truth!” [Schutz: 1999]14

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Some practical exercises for developing your self awareness and authenticity.

Exercise One: Self reflection.

I invite you to take five minutes right now and look inwards, focus perhaps on a situ-ation an event or a relationship which is challenging you in someway. Using level one, ask yourself….am I part of the problem…am I doing something which I should not be doing?...Can I do something right here, right now, myself, which can begin to correct this problem, even in a very small way?

Exercise Two: First Truth First.

Practice being more truthful, from this moment onwards, by deploying self disclosure as the ‘first truth first’. This simply means you initiate truthful discussions and conversa-tions with self disclosure [level one] about what and how you are feeling as an important prelude to the truthful conversation you wish to initiate.

An example may help. Let’s say for example that I want to confront or challenge someone about their behaviour, but the thought of this makes me anxious and concerned about how they will react to my confrontation. Using the technique of ‘first truth first’ I begin the con-versation with some self disclosure. “I am feeling anxious about this conversation as I am not sure how you will react to what I have to say…”

With only a little practice you will become very skilful at using First Truth First. Using it will make the most difficult conversations easier, more manageable and less stressful for all who are involved. It will also enable you to become more authentic and therefore trustwor-thy in the eyes of others.

It is time now to move on to step two—Accountability

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Accountability—Step 2

Human beings are the most complex, unique and social species on the planet, reach-ing the highest frontiers of wisdom, creativity and consciousness. Yet all humans share a basic desire to feel safe, loved, respected and to be all they can be. Human beings also have a unique ability to be self determining —although we do not always exercise it and may not always be aware of it.

In the previous chapter I discussed the importance of truth and its role in generating trust and loyalty as the first step to authentic leadership.

Step two is Accountability—taking responsibility for our actions and our behaviours. Ac-countability begins by recognising that all of our actions, reactions and behaviours are a matter of choice.

This approach does not recognize the ‘I had no choice’ defence. We always have a choice. It is equally true that every single choice we make will have some sort of consequence—there is no denying that. Even though our choices may be driven by our capacity to understand our current circumstances, we none the less always have a choice as to how we react and respond in any situation.

Awareness of our capacity to choose enables us to become self determining, to run our own life. Choice is the great liberator. There is always at least one alternative to any situation in which we find ourselves. These alternatives, whatever they may be, provide us with an op-portunity to choose the option which will best satisfy our current needs. Awareness of the choices, options and alternatives available to us, enables us to determine which of these will best satisfy our desires.

The 7 Steps approach upholds the ideals of self determination and self actualisation as guiding values. It offers a realistically optimistic and constructive view of human beings and their innate and powerful capacity to be self-determining. This is driven by the belief that accountability, intentionality and self congruence are powerful motivational forces and that the movement towards the fulfilment of these, leads to the expression of uniquely hu-man qualities such as the interaction of the body, mind and spirit, and the capacity to be-come more aware, free from distress, self responsible, life-affirming and trustworthy; these are exciting, energising and vibrant ideas.

Freedom of choice in creating one’s life experience is at the heart of accountability, and is referred to as self determination. It is possible that today, living in a world of practically constant change and turmoil, the ideals of self actualisation, self determination and person-al empowerment are more important than they ever were.

The configuration of our self concept [self image] is a direct result of the choices we make in life. These in turn are driven by many things, including how we perceive ourselves and what we believe about ourselves. The personal narratives [stories] we create about our-selves and our experiences contribute to these perceptions and hence to the choices we make.

We have the capacity to make choices with our full and undivided attention in the present moment [truth level one]. Or we have the capacity to make unaware choices [levels two and three]. Unaware choices can be made as a result of how we are feeling about ourselves

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or the situation we find ourselves in and are the result of the impulse to either enhance or diminish these feelings.

Awareness is not enough to facilitate change on its own. It is the necessary precursor to change and can be a most effective and powerful catalyst. But awareness alone will not change anything. In order to effect change we must initiate action; this can be physical, emotional, psychological or attitudinal. Whatever the action is, it is that which creates the change.

However, action alone will probably not be enough, for no sooner do we become aware of the situation we desire to create, than in the same instant, we connect with all the self limit-ing reasons why we cannot achieve our ideal. In order to break free from these beliefs, these convenient fictions, we must acknowledge the importance of, and the challenge of, coura-geously learning to take responsibility for ourselves. We must also acknowledge the diffi-culty and challenge of questioning our self limiting beliefs. A challenge which is necessary to enable us to make whatever choices are needed to achieve whatever is required to fulfil our desires.

This concept of choice and accountability is sometimes perceived as suggesting to people that they should feel as if they are to ‘blame’ for everything in their lives—quite the op-posite of what is intended. Rather than being an instrument of blame, it is intended to be a powerful tool for personal liberation, a way of moving us closer to our self actualisation and the realisation of our deeper potential. It does this by simply inviting us to accept that we are responsible for ourselves, accountable in the first instance to ourselves and to take full responsibility for our lives, recognising that self determination is a matter of choice.

For example unless someone is holding a gun to my head, when I tell the truth, I am mak-ing a choice to be truthful. In the same way when I lie or when I withhold, I am also making a choice. This is not a value judgement, it is simply stating a fact.

Many people find this idea, this concept that we choose everything in our lives, to be disa-greeable and difficult to accept, because it is easier to hand responsibility for their life and the situations in which they find themselves to fate, to their upbringing, their education, their chosen occupation, current employer, team, boss, current job, to luck, to chance, to the Government of the day or to “Uncle Tom Cobley and all.”

If you do not accept responsibility for yourself, you hand power, authority and responsibili-ty to ‘forces’ outwith yourself. You give up your ability to be self determining when you are unable or unwilling to acknowledge that you are responsible for your life in every respect.

When you accept that you choose your own life, everything changes. When you are fully aware of the choices you make, and make choices with your full awareness, you put your-self very firmly in the driving seat of your life. Authenticity and Accountability form a per-fect partnership. Choice informed by self awareness is the royal road to enlightenment.

Accepting full responsibility may bring to your immediate attention those areas, situations and relationships in your life where you need to sort things out, whatever that may mean for you. This can be extremely challenging, even painful. Accepting responsibility may also mean having to deal with the consequences of choices made in the past. However, when you accept that what you do, why you do it, how and when you do it, is down to you, you are driving your own life.

No one is trying to tell you that it is easy. However, I am suggesting to you that it is harder

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not being in charge of your life than it is actually running your own show. I am not trying to suggest that you will have already acquired all the skill and knowledge which you need to achieve your fullest potential. You may have to choose to learn more, gain more experi-ence and understand more. But that’s OK now, because you are in the driving seat and you can choose to do those things which are necessary in order to achieve your dreams. Not only that, your dreams are much more likely to happen when you choose them rather than waiting for fate to deal you a lucky hand.

Choice and Consequences.

Whichever of the levels of truth we choose to use, is directly related to how we see ourselves and how we feel about ourselves, our self concept or self image. In essence, when we have a healthy and balanced self concept—high self regard, we are more likely to choose level one. When our self concept is out of balance, we have poor self regard or low self es-teem, we are more likely to choose levels two or three and to lie to or withhold from others and to engage in self deception and denial.

Experience suggests that we choose levels two or three to defend ourselves against the real or imagined reactions of others. We worry that if we tell the truth, people will ignore us, think us stupid or they won’t like us.

Every choice you make has a consequence. Authenticity and Accountability are like Siamese twins: they are linked. The consequences of your choices will directly affect your self esteem. The interpersonal consequences may well affect your relationships. The conse-quences of choices will be either immediate or will manifest at some time in the future.

However, sometimes the consequences of our choices are not immediate, as in the case of a heavy smoker who may not experience the consequences of their tobacco consumption until many years after they made the choice to become a smoker. This delay between choice and consequence can seduce us into thinking that there are no consequences to some of our choices. Experience suggests that this view is likely to be a distortion or denial of reality.

Remember, too, that our choices can be aware and conscious or they can be unaware. For example; when I was eight years old, I wanted to be included in the ‘bad boys’ club who met at playtime in the back school playground, somewhat out of sight of authority and into all sorts of interesting mischief. To join this club it was necessary to be a smoker. So I chose to start smoking. I got included in the club, which was what I wanted. That was my conscious choice. My unaware choice was that much later in life, in my late thirties, I devel-oped bronchial problems which were a direct consequence of my choice to start and con-tinue smoking. My entire life has been full of aware and unaware choices.

The Antidote

Many group participants and coaching clients report a sense of emptiness in their lives, and of feeling aimless, adrift and lacking in purpose. This is often the reason why they seek development and coaching in the first place.

Choice is the antidote! The minute we are able to accept that the statement “I Determine My Own Life” is true, everything is different and from that point onward, everything has changed. When you accept that you alone are accountable and responsible for your life—you have chosen to become self determining, you have accepted responsibility for your life and for your circumstances. You have empowered yourself.

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It is worth repeating that no one is suggesting it is easy. It requires courage. It requires awareness, acknowledgement and acceptance of the existence of the current unsatisfactory situation, whatever that may be, and the acknowledgement that only you can choose to change it.

It requires the acceptance of complete responsibility for every element of our reality. Note also what Schutz has to say about the right or wrong of choice:

“Just like the levels of truth, the Choice Concept has nothing to do with morality. You are not being asked to consider whether choice—self determination—is a good or a bad thing, is ethical or unethical, moral or immoral, proper or improper. You are be-ing asked to consider whether the hypotheses that “I choose my own life and I determine what happens in my world”, are useful to you. If this does not prove to be a useful hypothesis for you, you can simply choose to remain with your present beliefs.” [Schutz: 1984]15

The Three Levels Of Truth enables us firstly to become aware of our defensive routines and coping strategies and secondly to realise that these routines and strategies are themselves choices. The Choice Concept enables us to determine what to do about them. If we do go back to deploying our defensive routines, that becomes a choice we make. If we continue to distort reality, that becomes a further choice we make. After we encounter Three Levels Of Truth and The Choice Concept—everything changes. Before this, when we did not know about Truth and Choice, we simply did not know. Now that we do know—not to know—is called denial.

Trust and accountability go hand in hand. In many respects you could argue they are one and the same. However, in other respects they differ. Accountability in the 7 steps approach is about taking responsibility for the decisions and choices we make. Self accountability, self determination, and the choice concept will help you in all areas of your life. Accountability is especially powerful as a step to Authentic Leadership.

By choosing to adopt a position of accountability, you are making a commitment to your-self and a powerful statement to those you lead that you will be 100% accountable for your decisions, your actions, your attitude and your behaviours towards others.

Most of the problems encountered in leadership are people problems and relationship problems. The vast majority of these interpersonal issues are the result of defensive behav-iours. Examples include: hidden agendas, blaming, denying, turf protection, image man-agement and pretending. More specifically exaggerating projections; missing deadlines; denying there’s a conflict, being in the huff, colluding that everything is OK and that there are no problems and so on.

Situations like these are made worse when leaders are unwilling to accept that they are responsible for confronting and dealing with them and instead collude with them, in the hope that they will somehow sort themselves out.

Choosing to adopt a position of self accountability, and communicating this requires a very challenging kind of change. Thomy Barton, long time associate of Will Schutz says

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“It requires openness and honesty, and a penetrating assessment of the defensiveness within yourself, your team, department and organisation.” {Barton:2012]16

How can you do this?

First of all, work to create a genuine climate for giving and receiving open and honest feedback to and from your reports as soon as you become aware that this needs to be done.

Next, set aside some time to identify, discuss [using the first level of truth and first truth first] and work to resolve the issues which are blocking teamwork and productivity with all members of the team present and participating. To paraphrase Abe Wagner author of The Transactional Manager [1981]17

“Tell It Straight Or Play It Crooked!”

This will enable you and your team to achieve new levels of trust and will create increased commitment, cohesion, enthusiasm, and support from all team members.The culture of your team will become imbued with the atmosphere of openness. Your reports can find out how you feel about them, their work and performance, and what it is like to work with them whenever they want to know and vice versa. You do not withhold or conceal relevant meaningful data and information from one another. You ask straight questions; you give straight answers. The entire team makes an on-going commitment to deal with interper-sonal issues as and when they arise and impact on work efficiency. They treat each other with appropriate respect and honesty as modelled by you their leader.

Now that we have looked at steps One: Authenticity and step Two: Accountabillity, it’s time to move to step Three: Limitlessness.

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Limitlessness—Step 3

Your Biggest Opponent—The Inner Voice

“Limits are illusions and barriers created for our unconscious convenience” [Lynch & Scott: 1999]18

The biggest opponent you face in achieving your potential as a leader, is the one who lives between your ears! The biggest barrier to the accomplishment of your ambitions, as-pirations and goals turns out to be those internalised self limiting beliefs, which interrupt, sabotage and prevent you from achieving your objectives.

Authentic Leadership is an inside-outside game. How You Think about ‘things’ drives What You Do about them. It’s all too easy to get busy doing ‘things’, completing tasks, ticking off your to-do’s and to lose awareness of the thought processes, the inner tapes, the self talk, that runs our lives. If these fundamental beliefs about oneself—the inner operating sys-tem—are left unexamined and unchallenged they can take on a life of their own.

The 7 Steps enable you to shine a light on, illuminate and bring into your awareness this inner aspect of your life and its immediate impact on your leadership. Using them, you will gain significant insights into how you currently lead and how, with small shifts in self belief and self talk, you can easily change and improve the way you lead—to dramatic effect.

Applying the 7 Steps will enable you to transform these insights and changes into plans that yield greater performance, better relationships, enhanced resiliency, measurably in-creased self confidence and a capacity to stay true to the results that matter to you, especial-ly in times of great challenge and high pressure.

In this approach we assume that human beings have no limits to their potential and that our only limits are limits of belief.

Frequently the choices we make in life are self limiting. These can be conscious or uncon-scious choices and will develop, over time, into self limiting beliefs, which hold us back and prevent us from achieving or fulfilling our potential.

Self Limiting Beliefs are defensive structures so deeply embedded within us that we can come to regard them as concrete, factual and unchangeable.

“Defensive reactions are rigid and do not vary in response to sit-uations and result in inappropriate behaviour.” [Schutz: 1994]19

They often manifest as short stories in our heads, mantras or statements such as “I’m no good at numbers, meetings, presentations, challenging others, challenging myself, time management, relationships and so on.

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Some example ‘statements’ which point to self limiting beliefs :-

I’m not good enough•I don’t know enough•They know more than me•I’m not charismatic•I’m not inspirational•I don’t have enough experience•They won’t listen to me•I’ll make a fool of myself•They won’t like me•I’ll be found out•I’ll be found wanting•I’ll look stupid•

NB this list is not exhaustive, it merely serves to illustrate some common self limiting be-liefs.

The terms stories, myths, personal legends and tablets of stone, are used to emphasise just how deep rooted these self limiting beliefs can be. However, given that we create our self limiting beliefs, with awareness [truth level one], we can choose to change them—for some-thing more positive.

Sidney Jourard has this to say on the subject…

“I view the world as plastic; not synthetic plastic, but plastic like plasticene.” [Jourard, 1971]20

He argues that everything has a plasticity quotient… “whether it be my appearance, my behaviour, my relationships with others, the landscape, the arrangement of furniture in my room, the behaviour of others in my world.”[ibid]

He goes on to make the point that each moment of our existence offers us the opportunity, to employ our awareness, and to choose to let things be as they are now, or to change them to how we want them to be. That is especially true about our self beliefs.

Many people are not satisfied with their lives, their occupations and their relationships, but tell themselves; “That’s the way it is and I can do nothing to change the situation!”

Developing and applying self awareness enables them to understand that any sense that their lives are fixed and unchangeable itself becomes exposed as a self limiting belief.

The illusions refered to above, which are manufactured for our unconscious convenience, are convenient fictions designed to protect our self concept from the the fear of failure.

It is perhaps at this point more than any other in the process, that the interlinked nature of the 7 Steps starts to become apparent. I choose my life, I choose my self concept, I choose the depth of my awareness of my self.

When my self concept is healthy, in a good state, I am much less troubled by worries of getting ‘things’ wrong, of looking foolish in the eyes of others and of believing myself to be incapable of changing whatever parts of my life I wish to.

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I am not suggesting that any of us is capable of developing superpowers such as the ability to fly unaided or to leap over tall buildings in a single bound. However, I do believe very firmly that each one of us uses but a small fraction of our ability and of our potential. It is the choices we make, conscious or unconscious, heavily influenced by our self concept, which determine our success or otherwise in life. Sometimes our choices determine our very survival!

How to overcome Self Limiting Beliefs.

Perhaps surprisingly, if you have not already thought this through for yourself, the way to overcome self limiting beliefs is to bring them fully into your awareness—truth level one— and then make a decision—choice—about whether or not they are accurate and use-ful to you. Finally if they are not useful to you, as is often likely to be the case, you need to make a decision about what your next steps should be and then take appropriate action to initiate the changes you desire.

When you get to this point you may begin to encounter further, deeply embedded, beliefs. This time about your ability and the corresponding difficulty you will therefore experience in trying to learn new stuff, acquire new skills, modify your behaviours and mannerisms and so on.

You need to see these for what they are—yet more self limiting beliefs. You are more than capable of learning and acquiring the skills and abilities necessary to become a much better leader if you make the decision to expend your intellect and enough effort to achieve your objectives. Effort is more important than ability!

Your Plastic Brain.

Are leaders born or made? You might be surprised to learn that leaders are made. OK, some people might be born with some form of genetic or in-bred talent for leadership, but they are few and far between. Leaders have to learn how to be leaders, just like athletes have to learn how to be athletes.

In recent years there has been something of an explosion of interest in our innate ability to learn new things. Skills like learning a new language, the ability to play a musical instru-ment, to become a top flight chef, to learn to fly an aircraft, to name but a few. Until recently the conventional view has been that human beings have ‘critical periods’ in their growth and development when their ability to learn is at its peak and if these periods are missed, it’s too late to learn!

There have been several books written on what has become know as neuro-plasticity; the capacity of the nervous system and the brain to learn new, complex skills. These books have one thing in common, the message they deliver is that effort is much, much more important than ability. They all argue that it is the ‘mind-set’ of the person who wishes to acquire new skills or increase and improve existing skills which is the most important component in this endeavour—not their age!

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Changing Self Limiting Beliefs

“The day came where the risk it took to remain closed in a bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” [Anais Nin: 2008]21

Carol Dweck author of Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success22, describes two per-spectives to personal and professional growth which permeate our lives, these are a ‘fixed mindset’ and a ‘growth mindset’.

The fixed mind-set is just that: fixed, static, rigid and unyielding. This occurs when some-one adopts the position that they cannot learn anything new, in any area, no matter how hard they try. Their mind has become narrow, rigid and fixed.

Self limiting beliefs are the product of a part of the self concept which has become narrow and fixed. However, the fixed nature of self limiting beliefs can be easily overcome by the application of self awareness and the courage to confront and test out these beliefs.

The growth mindset is in stark contrast. The person adopting a growth mindset assumes that with enough energy, time, focus, self confidence and commitment they will be able to grow. The growth mindset is flexible and resilient.

People who choose to have a growth mindset are awake to the fact that if they are willing to invest time and effort, to put some energy into their development, challenge and learn to overcome their inner opponent, they can in time, learn and acquire the skills and abilities they desire.

Acquiring new skills and abilities often creates some internal discomfort, feelings of frus-tration and irritation often arise when we realise that whatever it is we want to learn how to do will take a bit longer than we might wish. It is one thing to realise that the beginning stages of any new learning learning are often inevitably difficult and uncomfortable, espe-cially when we are learning to change specific aspects of our behaviour and attitude. It is quite another matter to use that discomfort as a reason not to learn anything new. I would suggest that the discomfort is a physical manifestation of a self limiting belief which can be dealt with as described above.

So far we have looked at Authenticity, Accountability and Self Limiting Beliefs. In the next chapter we turn our attention to Relationships.

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Relationships—Step 4

“Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individu-als that can go it alone.”[Wheatley: 1992]23

“There are many ways of influencing people. You can coax, flat-ter or even threaten them. However the most potent way is by helping them imagine how things could be different.” [Carruthers: 2003]24

“People need People” [Schutz: 1958]25

Your ability to lead is based on your ability to influence. Your ability to influence will be visible in your behaviour towards others.

To fully comprehend the 7 Steps To Authentic Leadership, it is important to understand certain fundamental and universal aspects of human behaviour. All humans share a basic desire to feel safe, valued, respected, loved, and to be all they can be. They can be grouped into three primary dimensions which drive our behaviour. These are the dimensions of Inclusion—Significance, Control—Competence and Openness—Likeability [affection].

The first of these is the dimension of inclusion, which is about significance, recognition, a sense of being valued, seen and heard. It is this which generates commitment and engage-ment. When an employee is included and engaged they are visible, present, motivated and fully involved in the business. In this dimension when a person’s needs for inclusion are met they have a sense of belonging and commitment to the group, team, organisation or society in which they feel included.

The second dimension, control, is the desire to have some degree of input as to how our lives and work are structured. This can include, for example, delegation from ‘management’ of appropriate amounts of responsibility, with accountability [in both directions], which creates a sense of capability and achievement. When an employee perceives their own abili-ties and believes these are seen and acknowledged by others, they are more likely to exer-cise initiative, accept responsibility, want to influence decisions, and deploy creativity and resilience. In this dimension when a person’s needs for direction, structure and control are fulfilled, they willingly use their skills and abilities.

The third dimension, openness, is personal. This dimension is about the quality and depth of one to one interpersonal relationships. It manifests in the degree to which each person is willing to be ‘open’, that is, appropriately self disclosing, in terms of their thoughts, views, opinions and feelings, toward one another. The behaviours expressed in this dimension are the visible expression of each person’s desire for openness and depth in the relationship. In an ideal scenario, this dimension will also manifest a very high degree of level one truth and candour. In this dimension, when a person’s needs for openness have been met the in-terpersonal relationships are characterised by high degrees of trust, which in turn can facili-

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tate depths of loyalty and commitment that simply cannot be obtained in any other manner.

When all three dimensions are met, the result is a person who perceives themselves to be Valued, Capable and appropriately Well Liked. This will almost inevitably signal the re-lease of ‘Discretionary Emotional Energy’ which is…

”The passion, excitement, enthusiasm and dedication that indi-viduals give freely to those causes, projects, relationships and organisations in which they truly believe.” [Tamm & Luyet: 2004]26

Discretionary Emotional Energy cannot be mandated, manipulated, demanded, coerced out of, or bought from employees. It is theirs and theirs alone to give!

”People join a company but they leave their boss!” [Buckingham, 2005]27

Like most people, unless your behaviour is somehow brought to your attention, you will tend to be unaware of it from one moment to the next. This is because those aspects of our behaviour, which are fundamental to our personalities, are so natural to us, that we tend not to notice them, unless we choose to become aware of them.

Understanding your natural preferences—becoming fully aware of them—will help you to understand the people you lead, and as a result of this understanding, enable you to lead them in a manner which will facilitate them to give you their best efforts consistently and over time. This is the key to high performing teamwork.

The fact is we are not all the same, particularly with regards to our fundamental prefer-ences for interacting. I have discovered that one of the most common errors leaders make is the assumption that the people they come into contact with are all ‘more or less the same’ as they are. In terms of the amount of interaction and connection we want to have with one another, we are all very different.

Not surprisingly it is these differences which cause the problems and if they are not ac-knowledged, the result can be in fractured, incompatible and less than perfect relationships. These suboptimal relationships will mean employees will under-perform and disappoint.

So why should you care if people’s needs for inclusion, control and openness [i - c - o] are met or not?

The answer is the C=P effect

Compatibility = Productivity. In many decades of scientific research into what makes teams work Will Schutz discovered that in more than 85% of test situations, groups and teams which were compatible in the dimensions of inclusion, control and openness, out-performed groups and teams which were incompatible. It did not matter whether the test situations were complex, mission critical, high intensity situations, or whether they were mundane, simplistic, trivial and unimportant. Compatible teams were practically guaran-teed to outperform their incompatible counterparts.[Schutz: 1994]28

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By productivity I mean whatever the purpose of the relationship is. In a work environment it is likely to mean output, that is sales, widgets produced, products created and developed, objectives achieved and so on.

Compatibility may well turn out to be the holy grail of leadership. Your challenge? It’s quite simple, as leader you are the best placed member of the team to facilitate compatibility. The good news is it only requires a very high degree of self awareness, authenticity, account-ability and courage. In other words the consistent application of the 7 Steps with the people you lead.

Relationships work best when the people in the relationship are compatible.

Compatibility has little to do with the task or job. Compatibility is predicated on the at-mosphere or culture of the team, group or organisation. Compatibility occurs when group members, those in a relationship, have their fundamental needs for inclusion, control and openness met enough of the time.

When our respective needs and wants for inclusion, control and openness fall within the zone of compatibility, productivity will result. This is encouraging because it does not mean that our respective needs for i-c-o must exactly match. If that were the case we would rarely achieve compatibility. The concept of the zone of compatibility means as long as our needs are close enough to being met much of the time, compatibility and therefore productivity will ensue.

Take a few moments to think about the outcomes of incompatibility. The usual conse-quences of an incompatible personal relationship are divorce, dissolution and break up. Incompatible work based relationships result in sub-optimal performance, with failure to meet objectives, high staff turnover, disciplinary proceedings, stress, burnout and conflict as some of the symptoms.

In the 7 Steps Approach we use the term ‘Atmosphere’ rather than ‘Culture’. Atmosphere is a more accurate description of the immediate environment with regards to inclusion, con-trol and openness, whereas culture is a much wider term and therefore less useful in this discussion.

Red Zone + Green Zone

When the team’s atmosphere is high on compatibility, the team and all its members will operate in the Green Zone. This is an environment where everyone feels Valued, Capable and Well Liked.

When the atmosphere of the team is ‘low’ on compatibility, problems arise almost immedi-ately. The team will move into the Red Zone, the reactive zone, the defensive zone. Incom-patibility arises when one or more team members’ preferences with regards to inclusion, control and openness are not being met. This creates anxieties around the dimensions of inclusion, control and openness which means that the person[s] in question will start to worry about being ignored, humiliated and rejected.

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The solution:-

Engage, that is, involve people appropriately. [Inclusion]

Delegate responsibility appropriately. [Control]

Share as much of yourself as you are comfortable with, appropriately [Openness]

You will read more about Red Zone and Green Zone behaviours in Step 6. But for now we move on to Step Five: Completion.

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Completion—Step 5

“Leaders create themselves—they are not born or made.” [Schutz: 1994]29

One of the most important facets of Authentic Leadership is the concept of comple-tion. Completion means the ability to follow something through to its logical conclusion. As far as authentic leadership is concerned this means much more than just the completion of tasks and the achievement of objectives, critically important as these are.

Completion is a term which means the fulfilment of an energy cycle. The energy cycle as defined by Schutz [1984], has four distinct phases, these are: motivation — preparation — action — satisfaction.

Motivation is the impulse, desire or drive towards something — the objective. This may be emotional, physical, intellectual, interpersonal and/or goal oriented.

Preparation is the awareness of, and the gathering of, resources: physical, intellectual and emotional, which are necessary to fulfil the motivation.

Action is the activity required to complete the objective.

Satisfaction is the feeling, the emotional reward, which results when the objective is real-ised.

When one cycle is complete, we move on to the next in turn. When a cycle is incomplete or interrupted it leads to dissatisfaction and frustration.

“There are two types of emotional problems: denials [unfinished experiences—truth level three] and distortions [lies—truth level two]. Both result from blocked, suppressed or incomplete energy cycles. Suppressed experience never dies. It does not even fade away. It is merely pushed back into the body and held there by a physical aberration, usually a chronic muscular tension.” [Schutz: 1984]30

Examples of such muscular tensions include headaches caused by frustration, and back ache caused by repressed anger.

Problems arise from a lack of completion, failure to complete, or interruptions to individual energy cycles. When a cycle is completed, the associated need has been satisfied. When we interrupt and fail to complete our energy cycles, the original need which drove or catalysed the cycle is left unfulfilled and unsatisfied; leading to frustration and dissatisfaction.

It transpires that almost all interruptions are driven by the three fundamental fears. These are:

The fear of being ignored, not seen and not heard — inclusion issues;

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The fear of being humiliated, found wanting, of looking stupid, of making a fool of oneself — control issues; The fear of being rejected, of not being liked, not loved, of not loving oneself — openness issues; or a a combination of all three

The perfect antidote to all of these fears and therefore all interruptions, is level one truth telling, acknowledging those fears and the impulse to choose not to complete because of the fear of being ignored, fear of looking stupid, of making a fool of oneself, or the fear of not being liked.

Being true to our self—Self Concordance.

People who give of themselves in an authentic and congruent way are better at what they do because their intention and actions are aligned with their core personal values. When we act in concordance, in agreement, in harmony, with our essence, purpose, core personal values and beliefs, we are being true to ourselves. As long as we continue to act in this manner, this facet of our self is complete.

You are Self Concordant when you feel, behave and act in ways which fit with, which are true to, and which uphold and honour, your personal interests and values. It seems that people who are self concordant, have measurably better self esteem than those who are not.

“People who are self concordant, that is are true to their beliefs and values, consistently exhibit higher subjective well being, regardless of culture.” [Sheldon,2004]31

When we act in a manner which is contrary to, and discordant with, our personal values and beliefs, we interrupt our cycle of values and create unfinished business. It’s as if we have decided that something or someone is more important than our core values. We are in danger of selling ourselves out!

If we do this often enough it can have disastrous consequences for our well being. There have been various studies carried out, across different cultures, which have focussed on the concept of ‘self concordance’.

Being aligned to and owning one’s actions, behaving congruently and acting authentically are important for the well-being of all humans.

Bottom Line Theory [BLT]

Rigorous, consistent application of the BLT will bring almost all interruptions to an imme-diate halt.

This is about your core values and your core beliefs about yourself. Your self concept. It is about your personal boundaries and how you uphold and honour your personal bottom line. In many respects it is the pinnacle of the 7 steps approach.

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Your Most Precious Asset.

Self awareness, self knowledge, truth level one, is about making the implicit explicit. It is the bringing into our awareness, that which has been hidden or occluded in some way.

“All behaviour is driven by self esteem.” [Schutz: 1984]32

Self esteem, how I feel about myself, how I regard myself, is the force which drives all my behaviour. It means that everything I do derives from how I feel about myself. This includes how I behave towards myself, look after myself, care for myself, manage my life, my work life balance and how I behave towards others. My self esteem drives all my interpersonal relationships.

Self Esteem—self regard, is the desire to be accepted, respected, valued, to feel important, to be liked and loved, by self and others.

When I feel good about myself, have high self esteem, this drives my behaviour in ways which are likely to be resilient, relaxed, flexible, appropriately accommodating towards oth-ers and assertive enough to ensure that most of my needs are met and my desires fulfilled.

When I do not feel good about myself, have low self esteem, this also drives my behaviour, but this time in ways which are likely to be inflexible, rigid, reactive and defensive. When my esteem is low I am constantly worried about how I am perceived by others and fear that I will be ignored, humiliated and/or rejected.

The challenge with regards to whether my self esteem is high or low is to acknowledge that the only person in the universe who can give me, create for me, a high , healthy self esteem or a low, wounded self esteem, is me!

My self esteem is my responsibility.

Given that all behaviour is driven by self esteem, this makes the self concept, which is comprised of the two halves, how I see myself, and how I feel about myself, my single most important and valuable asset .

The Bottom Line Theory is a tool to maintain a healthy self concept. It is a useful aide mem-oire to facilitate on-going self awareness and help us to honour our values and boundaries.

The premise underpinning Bottom Line Theory is that we all have a bottom line with re-gards to how others behave towards us how we allow ourselves to be treated by others; but this is often hidden and outwith our awareness.

Raising our self awareness of our bottom line is important in terms of developing strategies for the preservation of the self concept.

The Bottom Line Theory is actually about our self concept, how we perceive, treat and look after ourselves. It is important to be as clear as we are able about this, as this clarity enables us to quickly decide what is appropriate and what is not appropriate in our interactions with others.

The awareness we develop by using the BLT enables us to make decisions as to how, when

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and what we share with others. You can use the technique of ‘First Truth First’ to help you to deal with situations that you may find difficult by declaring this in advance and reserv-ing the right to change the subject or terminate the interaction. The bottom line in this instance is about choosing which situations to engage with and which to withdraw from – until you feel more able or better prepared to deal with all of them.

Developing your BLT takes practice, especially if you have not been used to assertively setting your own boundaries. Other people may well take time to get used to you setting boundaries, especially those whom you have known for a long time. It is possible that some may have a vested interest in you not changing, they may not admit to that or even be aware of it, but none the less, at some level they want you to stay the same.

If this should be the case you need to prepare to encounter some resistance, subtle or other-wise. Resistance can come in all sorts of shapes and forms, including for example, manipu-lative comments and attempts to make you feel guilty.

You need to be very clear about what you want to achieve. If your objective is to change the behaviour of others, that will be very difficult to achieve. If your intention is to feel good about yourself, maintain your boundaries, protect your bottom line, honour and uphold your personal values and standards, complete your interactions with others, then all that is much easier to achieve, but absolutely does need practice.

If you have never given this idea any thought and are wondering how to establish your own bottom line, it can be helpful to think about our loved ones. When for example we see our children, or our nearest and dearest being dealt with unfairly we will usually react very quickly to ensure that the unfair treatment stops immediately. When you give this some thought I imagine you will already have a set of very clear bottom lines here.

The next step is to translate these into your own personal bottom lines.

One way I have found to be effective is to think of those situations which are very obvious and therefore require no thinking through or internal questioning, we just know what is right and what should and should not be tolerated.

Then from this base you work your way forward developing your ideas via less obvious but more personal examples until you arrive at a more complete personal bottom line theory.

Here are some examples. In the UK it is illegal to discriminate against someone on grounds of race, religion and gender. It is against the law to bully or harass someone. These are what I mean by obvious examples, there are many others which fall into this category. Many of the policies in your place of work will be bottom lines, the crossing or breaking of which will result in immediate action being taken.

Here are some examples of bottom lines developed by people I have worked with.

“When working with someone who has been accused of bullying or harassing others, I insist that for the duration of the working relationship they agree to treat others with basic courtesy and respect, otherwise the working relationship will end immedi-ately.”

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“Agreements are very important, my work is based largely upon trust, therefore I will not work with anyone who breaks an agreement with me, unless there is a very compelling reason why the agreement has been broken.”

“I do not bully others and I do not accept being bullied by oth-ers.”

“I endeavour to be completely truthful with everyone I deal with and therefore will not work with those who are less than truth-ful with me.“I have learned over the years that I do not like to be faced with aggressive behaviour from others and so I will not work with people who display aggression towards me; however, this is very different from anger, I am more than happy to work with people who are angry about something because to do so can be extremely liberating for them and me

These are but a few examples of Bottom Lines focusing on workplace scenarios. Bear in mind that there are likely to be areas of your life outwith your place of work where an awareess of your own bottom lines can be helpful. Note also that taking time to think about your bottom lines is likely to be very challenging because it will make you aware of the times, places and situations where you are less than assertive when looking after your self concept.

When we suspend or give up our right to a healthy self concept we are selling ourselves short. This is not good. Your self concept is your most important asset and you need to nourish and look after it.

Having a clear understanding and awareness of your own bottom lines is the accelerated route to achieving and maintaining a healthy self concept.

The aware development and application of your own BLT means you are creating a power-ful system that doesn’t let you squirm out of your own success. A method so powerful that it won’t let you sabotage yourself. A process based on awareness and honesty that compels you to succeed.

With this in mind it is now time to move on to Step 6, The Turning Point.

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The Turning Point—Step 6

“If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of, I warn you that you will be unhappy for the rest of your life.” [Maslow: 1971]33

The purpose of Authentic Leadership is enabling people to reclaim their potential. This approach upholds the ideals of self determination and self actualisation as guiding values. It presents a constructive, optimistic view of human beings and their innate and powerful capacity to be self determining. It is driven by the firm belief that authenticity, accountability and intentionality are powerful motivational forces and that the movement towards the fulfilment of these, leads to the expression of such uniquely human qualities as the interaction of the body, mind and spirit, and the capacity to become more aware, free from distress, self responsible, self confident, life affirming and trustworthy. These are excit-ing, energising and vibrant ideas.

Self Esteem is the desire to be accepted, respected, valued, to feel important, to be liked and loved—by self and others. Self actualisation is the desire of individuals to be the best they can be, to fulfil their potential for personal growth and development.

The problem with life is that none of us gets out alive! The end game is the same for each and everyone of us. For this reason we should take every opportunity life offers us to be fully alive, present in each moment and living our life to the full. We should attend to the development and maintenance of a healthy and vibrant self concept and the nourishment of our self esteem.

So why don’t we?

In the previous step we looked at the three fundamental fears which stop us completing our energy cycles, whatever these may be.

It is natural when we are faced with threats to our basic needs for inclusion, control and openness to become defensive in order to protect ourselves from the feelings which the fear generates, that is the fear of being ignored, humiliated and or rejected. These are universal fears and they are extremely powerful.

When they are present, which is far more often than most people realise, they trigger a part of the limbic brain structure brain called the amygdala. The job of the amygdala is to be constantly on the lookout for any threat to our wellbeing. When such a threat is detected the amygdala can commandeer or highjack our intellect and cause us to behave in a defen-sive, reactive manner. Because the amygdala is an integral part of our so called ‘primitive’ brain, it lacks the capacity for rational thought and evaluation; it is a reactive mechanism, designed for self defence. It often gets it wrong!

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The amygdala cannot differentiate from an anxiety I may be experiencing about being ig-nored in a social setting and the threat of being mugged for my wallet in some dark alley-way.

Because I have experienced the fear of being ignored, humiliated and rejected countless times in my life, I have developed a range of defensive routines to deal with these. All of these defensive routines have one single purpose, to protect my self concept from the feel-ings of being ignored, humiliated and/or rejected.

Defensive routines cause me to alter my behaviour to protect my self concept. Although defensive behaviours can be wide and varied, they will generally fall into two broad catego-ries. These are Under Behaviour and Over Behaviour.

Under behaviour basically means that I reduce my behaviour, make it smaller. It may appear as though I am disengaging with others, or that I couldn’t care less what happens. Over behaviour is the opposite. I enlarge my behaviour, make it more obvious, louder, hard to avoid. Both over and under behaviours are different responses to the same fear!

Here are some examples of defensive behaviours in each of the three dimensions.

Inclusion—fear of being ignored, or not seen, not heard, not listened to, not involved.

Under-behaviour: Why bother? What’s the point? No one will pay any attention to me away The defensive behaviour is to withdraw and disengage from interacting with others.

Over-behaviour: Counteracting the feeling of being ignored the behaviour gets bigger. Characteristics of this defense are, flamboyance, extravagance and exhibitionistic behaviour, making if difficult to be ignored.

Control—fear of being humiliated, looking stupid, being ashamed and embarrassed.

Under-behaviour: Abdicate responsibility, avoid making decisions or providing direction.

Over-behaviour: Autocratic, “It’s my way or the highway!” micromanagement!

Openness—fear of being rejected, disliked, unloved.

Under-behaviour: Becoming extremely impersonal, aloof, disinterested, ‘professional’.

Over-behaviour: No secrets, no boundaries with regards to personal life, no personal limits.

Schutz talked about the rational—defensive continuum 34 a spectrum where our behaviour at any given time can be measured as more rational or more defensive. When we are op-erating at the rational end, we have access to our intellect and are able to think clearly and rationally. When we operate towards the defensive end of the spectrum our amygdala has hijacked our intellect and our feelings have taken over.

There are times when defensive behaviour is the best reaction, such as in emergencies like a fire, when we need to get out of a building fast. However, most of the time, when there is no existential threat, no real, clear and present danger, defensive behaviour is invariably counter productive.

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The Turning Point

The turning point comes the moment you realise that you choose your reactions and there-for defensive behaviour is also a choice . The technique fore eliminating defensive reactions is explained next.

An Excercise On How to stop being defensive.

As with so many aspects of this approach the place to begin is with self truth—level one awareness. There are only four categories of fear in the entire universe, and only one of these requires any defensive reaction. Realising and acknowledging this will be helpful in enabling you to eliminate many of your habitual defensive reactions and routines!

The category of fear that we do have to worry about is existential fear. That is where there is some clear existential threat to your well-being, such as when a mugger points a gun to your head and demands your money, or you are unfortunately in a building which is in danger of collapse for some reason. These are situations where it is very sensible to become defensive in order to preserve your life.

The other three categories of fear are all internal, these are the fears of being ignored, hu-miliated and or rejected. These are unhelpful fears of the self concept, which trigger our amygdala and catalyse the defensive reactions and behaviours which can interfere with our relationships and our effectiveness in all areas of our lives.

The key to eliminating defensive reactions is self awareness. Instead of reacting to a situa-tion or person, the key is to ask yourself ‘What is the reason I am becoming defensive right now’?

What is it I am worried about…being ignored…looking silly…or not being liked?

As soon as you answer that question honestly for yourself, it is likely that the need to be-come defensive will evaporate. That is not to say that you will never be ignored, or never do something which makes you look silly, or indeed that you will be universaly well liked. It is simply that by asking yourself the question, you bring the fear and anxiety into your conscious awareness, alongside the realisation and knowledge that you will cope with these feelings. It is this realisation which dispels the need for any defensive reaction.

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Simplicity—Step 7

“Your capacity to think has no influence whatsoever upon your will.”

The first time I heard that quotation it made me think,—which is what it’s designed to do. A personal example of this phenomenon in action took place about four years ago, when I finally acknowledged that I had allowed myself to become very unfit. Prior to this, on many occasions, I had ‘thought’ about my level of fitness and my general well being. I had ‘thought’ that I was not getting nearly enough exercise and was drinking and eat-ing far to much, but did not do anything about it…my capacity to think had absolutely no influence upon my will. What did influence my will, was my doctor informing me that my blood pressure was dangerously high; I am pleased to say it is now fully fixed, by attending to proper exercise and diet.

If you have read this far, you have had ample opportunity to ‘think’ about your leadership. You have had ample opportunity to review you leadership style and your behaviour, your interactions with others, your accountability, your defences and hopefully have also given serious thought to developing your personal bottom lines.

The final step in your journey is implementation, putting what you have learned to good use and leading authentically all of the time.

“The most profound solutions are simple. Simplest is best.” [Schutz:1994]35

When Schutz was engaged in the research which led him to create FIRO Theory he observed that…“My efforts at ordering group phenomena resulted in the hypothesis that all group behaviour can be understood as variations resulting from three areas: inclusion, control and openness…Group behaviour became simple again. [Schutz]

This ‘simple’ concept applies to the practice of authentic leadership, it too can be under-stood from the same three areas: inclusion, control and openness. When our interpersonal needs in all three areas are satisfied, the relationship will be harmonious, cordial, produc-tive and satisfying. If these fundamental needs are not satisfied the result will be measur-able disharmony and dissatisfaction in our personal relationships. In a work or other pro-ductive environment the disharmony will result in suboptimal performance.

The 7 steps form a comprehensive, holistic, joined up approach to authentic leadership and when they are applied consistently, will create, sustain and help to maintain an ideal, har-monious and productive working environment.

Authentic leadership starts within you, with level one self awareness, so that the outward expression of your leadership, your behaviour, your manner and your attitude is a direct reflection of your awareness, understanding, and acceptance of yourself and others.

Self awareness, is a continual, lifelong process, of paying attention to and of knowing one-self. It involves consciously and intentionally observing various dimensions of the self (including the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual realms). It is the capacity to observe moment by moment how one is thinking, relating, feeling, sensing, and judging. It also includes paying attention to such aspects of our being as intuition, empathy and resonance

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with others. Holistic Awareness is the understanding that everything is interconnected within a system.

Developing this awareness enhances our capacity to easily switch between different per-spectives, measures and worldviews, and enables us to see and consider the whole pic-ture—the relationships and the interconnections within the system; it includes the ability to focus in on small details as well as perceiving the bigger picture.

Conclusion.

Authentic Leadership encompasses purpose, vision, effective communication, inten-tion, and service. It is energised by how and what you value, where you choose to place your attention, and a commitment to your own personal integrity and values [self truth and bottom line theory].

Application of these 7 Steps will help you to enhance and integrate all of your abilities and strengths, and reduce or eliminate that which does not serve you. They are designed to help you lead yourself with authenticity, accountability, intention and passion, in order that you can become an Authentic Leader.

This approach is holistic; that means it is a comprehensive, complete and unified approach which when applied to leadership, delivers outstanding results, creates loyalty, cohesion and levels of commitment which money alone simply cannot buy.

It is fundamentally simple. It addresses the whole person. It is based on self awareness and the acknowledgement that when people are treated with respect, dignity and basic human warmth, this enables them to feel engaged, offers them opportunities to demonstrate and practice their skills and abilities and to feel a deep sense of affection for the communities to which they belong.

It is this affective aspect of their interpersonal experiences which leads to the release of pas-sionate, discretionary effort, which in turn facilitates peak performance.

In the workplace the person with responsibility for creating a climate where these needs are met, is the leader.

Knowing what to do [awareness] in any given situation is not enough on its own. Knowl-edge is of course very important, but knowledge without action is impotent.

The 7 Steps to Authentic Leadership is an active approach. It will not implement itself! It requires conscious engagement coupled with intentional implementation.However, it is not difficult to apply and the results of implementing this approach will, in many cases, be almost instantaneous. The results you can expect for your efforts are a loyal, engaged, com-mitted workforce, delivering consistent, peak performance.

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads and the boss drives” [Theodore Roosevelt: in Ridgers (ed) 2012]36

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The ‘ABC’ of Authentic Leadership

You as leader need to supply sufficient self awareness, interpersonal behaviours ap-propriate to the 7 steps and the courage and commitment to see this through. This is what is known as the ABC of Authentic Leadership.

This approach is complete—all seven steps are linked together and form a system to enable you to facilitate all your interpersonal relationships. This eBook focuses on authentic leader-ship, but make no mistake, this system applies to all relationships; and when it is applied intentionally, will help you to get the best out of yourself and all of your relationships.

Each of the steps is a powerful tool in its own right, but when they are combined with your awareness and understanding of the other six steps, gives you an approach to develop your own unique style of Authentic Leadership and to achieve all your objectives. Along the way you will develop and enhance your self concept, increase your self esteem and become a much better, more relaxed, more confident leader.

It is also simple—profoundly simple! Relationships need not be difficult or complicated unless we make them so. The theory underpinning this approach is universal, it applies to everyone. This means there is no need for guess work. All peoples relate to one another across the dimensions of inclusion, control and openness. Now that you have read about them, thought about them, related to them and understood them, all you have to do is ap-ply them consistently, that is simple.

If Not Now When?

Like Schutz, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, Victor Frankl and Eckhart Tolle are all implacable in their encouragement that each one of us is solely responsible for the course and direction of our lives. This applies to all our endevours, our hopes, fears and aspirations. It is not selfish, but it is very challenging, quite simply If you will not accept full responsibility for your life, for your development, for your future, who will?

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?” [Hillel: 2012]37

Some years ago I developed a simple tool to assist my clients and group participants in their on-going implementation of the 7 Steps. It is called the ‘Daily 10’…yes I know there are 7 Steps, but there are 10 small things/actions for you to consider for two or three min-utes in total, on a daily basis, to keep you on track with the 7 Steps To Authentic Leader-ship. You will find it on the following pages.

In closing I simply want to encourage you to begin apply the 7 steps in your leadership and in your life, right now, and notice the results and the changes that take place in you and others. Thank you for taking the time to read 7 Steps to authentic leadership. “Keep Telling The Truth”

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The Daily Ten breaks the 7 steps into ten small sections which you are invited to con-sider and reflect upon for a short period of time every day. Doing this will enable you to rapidly develop your skills and will have a powerful impact on your leadership ability.

Alternatively, another way to use the daily ten is to take one of the ten at a time and reflect upon that and practice its implimentation until you are comfortable using it, then move on to the next and so on. You may find this process suits you better.

I have also included the self development matrix below, which will enable you, should you wish, to record your progress through the 7 Steps

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BIBLIOGRAPHYPaul Hunting; “Transformational, life-changing results – how? Authentic leadership breakthrough 1.

– that’s how>” Web. www.horsejoy.com The Natural Leadership Centre Ltd. Thornfield Stretton on Fosse, Moreton-on-Marsh, Glos GL56 9RA (2011).

Sean Howard; “Leadership failure is undermining employees’ workplace attitudes and experiences” 2. Feature in HR Magazine, Web. www.hrmagazine.co.uk July 4 (2011) [Survey data in chapter one were also gathered from a variety of sources including: Director Maga zine; The Guardian Newspaper, various; BBC Radio Four; CIPD HR Review, various.]

Chip Conley; Peak, Jossey-Bass (2007).3.

Abraham Maslow; A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review 50(4): 370-96 (1943).4.

Editorial comment, Harvard Business Review, Vol 85, No 2 (2007).5.

Will Schutz; The Truth Option, Ten Speed Press (1984).6.

William Shakespeare; Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III, Polonious.7.

Jack Welch; Winning, Harper Business (2005).8.

Will Schutz; The Human Element, Jossey-Bass (1994).9.

Richard Koonce; “One on One”, Training and Development, 48, Feb (1994).10.

Bill George et al; “Discovering your authentic leadership” Harvard Business Review, Vol 85, No 2 11. (2007).

Will Schutz; The Human Element, Jossey-Bass (1994).12.

Kennon M Sheldon et al; “Self concordance and subjective wellbeing in four cultures”, Journal of 13. Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol 35, No 2 (2004).

William Shakespeare; Hamlet, Act 1, Scene III, Polonious.14.

Will Schutz; Personal Communication (1999).15.

Will Schutz; The Truth Option, Ten Speed Press (1984).16.

Thomy Barton; Barton White Associates Inc. Web. www.bartonwhite.com/whatisit.htm (2012).17.

Abe Wagner; The Transactional Manager, TA Communications Inc (1981).18.

Jerry Lynch and Warren Scott. Running Within: A Guide to Mastering the Body- Mind-Spirit Connec 19. tion for Ultimate Training and Racing. Human Kinetics (1999).

Will Schutz; The Human Element, Jossey-Bass (1994).20.

Sidney Jourard; The Transparent Self, Van Nostrand Reinhold (1971).21.

Anais Nin; “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it 22. took to blossom” Blog. Wild Mind Buddhist Meditations www.wildmind.org July 24 (2008).

Carol Dweck; Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Random House (2006).23.

Mary Wheatley; Leadership and the New Science, Berrett-Koehler (1992).24.

Iain Carruthers; How to Move Minds and Influence People, Prentice Hall Business (2003).25.

Will Schutz; FIRO: A three dimensional theory of interpersonal behavior, Holt Rinehart & Winston 26. (1958).

James Tamm and Ronald Luyet; Radical Collaboration; HarperCollins Publishers Inc. referring to the 27. term coined by Stan Slap www.slapworld.com (2004).

Marcus Buckingham; interviewed on Business Week On-line, October (2005).28.

Will Schutz; The Human Element, Jossey-Bass (1994).29.

Will Schutz; The Human Element, Jossey-Bass (1994).30.

Kennon M Sheldon et al; see 13 above.31.

Will Schutz; The Truth Option, Ten Speed Press (1984).32.

Abraham Maslow; The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Viking Press (1971).33.

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Will Schutz; FIRO: A three dimensional theory of interpersonal behavior, Holt Rinehart & Winston 34. (1958).

Will Schutz; Profound Simplicity, London: Turnstone Books, (1979).35.

Theodore Roosevelt (US President 1901-1909) quoted in The Economist Book of Business Quotations 36. edited by Bill Ridgers, John Wiley & Sons Inc. (2012).

Hillel The Elder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder 10AD; [Wikipedia, 2012]37.

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Will Schutz.

“The purpose of this work is to contribute to the development of more self-aware, open organizations and individuals with greater self-esteem. It is our desire that advancements in under-standing the human element will at least match our advance-ments in technology. As we realize the tremendous power of truth, recognize our awesome capacity to determine our own lives, and overcome our fear of looking openly and honestly at ourselves, we can attain limitless heights of productivity and personal fulfillment in our organizations, our relationships, and ourselves.” Will Schutz, Ph.D.

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Now What!

If you have been captivated and energised by the ideas in 7 Steps To Authentic Leadership and would like to continue your learning and development in this approach, there are a number of routes you can consider.

I offer bespoke, client centred coaching sessions, to individuals, groups, teams and organi-sations, on all aspects of the 7 Steps Approach at my office hub in West Sussex, within your organisation or at mutually convenient locations.

Consider participating on one of my FIRO based public training programmes, you can find details [dates, costs etc] on my web site here www.edgecon.co.uk

Invite me to talk on Authentic Leadership and other aspects FIRO Theory at your work-shop, conference or event.

7 Steps To Authentic Leadership will be updated periodically, please check back to my web site for update details. It will also be made available in Kindle and other eBook formats, these relases will be annouced on my web site as they become available.

Please contact me initially by email to discuss your requirements.

Thank you,

Pat Young

Octber 2012.

pat@edgecon.co.uk

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