Stay Weird - A Guide to Authentic Leadership
Authentic Leadership is the new way of leading. Harvard Business School wrote that being authentic leads to better relationships with colleagues, higher levels of trust, greater productivity and a more positive working environment. After years of honing a professional persona, however, some might find these new expectations of vulnerability and honesty to be quite challenging.
How safe is it to really let your guard down, be yourself and share the real you with your co-workers and your employees? Brene Brown and Adam Grant would argue that it’s vital.
I’m fortunate to currently work for a company where I am able and encouraged to be completely authentic, where I feel like I belong: where my values are aligned, where I’m recognised, supported and celebrated. Imagine that!
Before this role I have worked many jobs, mainly in education, but I have also dabbled in bar work, stacked shelves in a library, flipped burgers, worked in a newsagent, cleaned hotel rooms, silver-served in restaurants, had a few jobs as a receptionist, and even stacked boxes on a factory line. I have worked in varying industries and with a wide range of people and wonderful teams. There is one team, however, that really stands out: a school where I stayed for seven years and an interview I’ll never forget.
It was 19 years ago and I was interviewing for the role of Deputy Head. There were 4 candidates and we’d all been asked to bring something that we were proud of. The other 3 all brought a selection of books, beautifully presented, perfectly marked, demonstrating progress… I thought for days about what I could bring.
I sat in the interview with my bag, answering the questions the panel asked, and when I was asked to share my item that made me proud I put my bag on the table and pulled out a scarf. A number of the panel reacted quite strongly. They were visibly horrified!
You see this was a highly unique scarf. It was of ridiculous proportions - extremely long and extremely thin - and it was made of (what were meant to be) squares, knitted in the most revolting colours: baby pink, brown, cream with blue flecks, canary yellow, lots of green. And I say they were meant to be squares because, while there were a few squarish bits in there, many were trapezoid, with loops of wool in places and holes in other places. I wish I had a photo because, honestly, words don’t really do it justice.
So you can understand why a few of the panel recoiled in horror!
I explained to them why I had brought it.
I told them that I had noticed that my current school didn’t have a community feel when I joined it, there was no ambition, academic or otherwise - other than football skills. There was little engagement with the community, little interaction between classes and no extra curricular clubs.
I had just joined a friends group outside of school where I’d learned to knit and was really enjoying it so thought perhaps I could share my newfound skills with the students. The adult group was called Stitch and Bitch - not highly appropriate for a Primary School Knitting Club! So I called it Knit’n’Natter. Much better.
I bought 20p bundles of knitting needles for the local charity shop and asked parents for wool donations - hence the cacophony of revolting coloured wool we used. I asked for some helpers too (knowing that there would be too many dropped stitches for me to pick up alone) and was joined by a few Mums and a couple of Grandmas.
None of the children could knit. We taught them. We taught them to knit, then we taught them to purl, then we taught them to cast on and to cast off. We helped them to knit their very first swatch and we sewed them together into a scarf.
The club grew in popularity, drawing in children from other classes - boys too! We ended up calling it Knit’n’Natter, Nosh’n’Noise” because they would take it in turn to make playlists for us to sing along to and bring biscuits or home made treats for us to eat. They then went on to knit other things: scarves of their own; presents for their family; and teddy bears. Then they decided that they wanted to knit blankets for the local Maternity Ward at the hospital.
Other teachers became inspired and started clubs of their own and the community grew. When we started, none of those children could knit. By the end they all could. They had all struggled initially but persevered. They had learned from their mistakes and mastered a skill that would last a lifetime. We had built a community and created a culture in the school. That was something I was extremely proud of.
To this day, Pat Allan, the Headteacher who interviewed me, says “It was that scarf that got you the job you know.” I stood out. Many would think my choice was weird, but Pat saw my core values in that story: connection, joy, learning, honesty and bravery. She knew that I was a good fit for the school and the school was a good fit for me. I belonged. There would be many schools who wouldn’t appreciate that scarf and what it represented. And, let’s be honest, those are schools which wouldn’t be (and in some cases were not) the right school for me.
This is not to say that we should all be looking for schools where everyone has the same values, vision and mindset. We know that diversity is important; representation is important. We need people with different experiences, talents and personalities. Students need to see people who look like them and who don’t look like them, who think like them and who don’t think like them. Everyone benefits from range. It develops empathy, understanding and learning. And it’s what the world needs now! Belonging is created when diversity is celebrated.
If you think about it, the application process is really like a match-making service. You are looking for an institution/school/business/group which matches what you are looking for and they are looking for staff who will fit. The problem is that we often don’t show our true colours in interviews because we’re so busy second guessing and showing a version of ourselves that we think they want to see, that we think will fit. But they need to see the real, authentic you.
Jenny Wood, the author of Wild Courage, would go further and advocate for showing the weird version of you. She says that we risk authenticity or we secure anonymity. We need to do some internal work to know ourselves, our values, strengths and talents and then share them. We also need to be currently doing a good job, and shouting about it, sharing our talents and strengths in a way that highlights them - we’re not going for shock value here. We need to have the courage to stand out.
Then - we hand it over. They will then see the real you and they’ll know: will you fit in or not? Are you what they are looking for? Do you have what they need? And if not - GREAT, you’ve just saved yourself a bitter breakup a few months or years down the line. Trust them.
So, a moment to reflect on a few questions:
What is unique about you?
What are you most proud of?
What are you passionate about?
What are your great strengths?
What are your values?
In Wild Courage, Jenny Wood takes 9 different negative characteristics and turns them around. She advocates for being weird, selfish, shameless, obsessed, nosy….
Five of my biggest takeaways from the book were:
Win as you or lose as ‘who?’ By embracing and celebrating who you actually are - potential employers will either embrace and welcome you or you risk working somewhere where you’re not a particularly good fit. And life’s too short for that!
Many of us are dreadful at self promotion and don’t want to appear big headed or boastful. I think we need to take a lead from K-Pop Demon Hunters. They sing “I’m done hiding, now I’m shining, like I’m born to be. We’re gonna, gonna be golden. We’re gonna be gonna be glowing.”
You need to be shameless, there is no shame in self promotion! Think of it as shining!
Meanwhile, you need to obsess about being the best you can be where you currently are. People will see this, will talk about this and will want their team to benefit from working with you.
Then, get REALLY nosy. Find out everything you can about the organisation and the teams. Look online and ask in person. The more connections you have, the more opinions you have, the more rounded your understanding will be.
Once you have completed those steps then it is time to trust your intuition and ask yourself if this is a place where you will thrive? To know that you need to do your homework first:
Know who you are, what you stand for, and what you offer
Do your research - online and in person
Use mentors and coaches and create connections.
And stay weird. Always.
