Authenticity: Bringing Your Whole Self to Work
By Sunnie Giles
The behavior of an individual
operating at the edge of chaos is congruent and integrated across bodily
sensations, thoughts, feelings, and actions. You are authentic when there is no
discrepancy among these aspects of you: you feel what you see, express what you
feel, think what you feel, and say what you think and feel. Integration also
means you are congruent across all roles you play, whether as a spouse, parent,
sibling, churchgoer, leader, employee, or citizen.
Stewart Butterfield, the CEO
and cofounder of Slack, a collaboration messaging software, describes this
action as bringing your whole self to work, not just parts of you. Authenticity
builds safety, trust, and connection, and it speeds up team communication. The
jerk boss (like one of my former bosses who told me she had more knowledge
under her big toenail than I did in my brain) we see every day at work who saps
the last drop of life out of us is actually, most likely, acting out of fear.
When we present a facade that might be more appealing and acceptable to others,
we (and those trying to connect with us) only feel empty because we cannot
connect with a facade. When we are authentic, showing our authentic and even
scared and insecure selves, we can bring our whole selves to work, and tap into
the maximum potential of our wholes (not just a professional self) on a
foundation of secure attachment and acceptance by our work families.
In corporate America, where
professionalism counts more than authenticity, we have developed an
overreliance and preference for the left brain. In the process, we have
justified the thoughts such as work-life balance, as if it’s a zero-sum game
where if we spend one more unit of energy at work then we become one less unit
available for our families and “professionalism is not emotional.” We need to
introduce more authentic emotions at
work, not less. But bringing your whole self, including the messy emotions,
makes you authentic, facilitates trust, and speeds up communication and
decision-making processes (recall the Navy SEALs rescuing Captain Phillips from
the Somali pirates and Sully and his first officer’s quick decision-making in
the Miracle on the Hudson). Individually, when you are integrated as a whole
person, it allows more efficient and accurate information processing across the
brain’s corpus callosum, which integrates the left and right hemispheres. Being
authentic requires courage and vulnerability, which requires the foundation of
safety and trust. In other words, safety and authenticity are mutually reinforcing,
and it takes time to build authentic relationships.
Companies that recognize the
benefit of “bringing your whole self to work” must, in return, provide more
flexibility and help to increase the quality of life with their employees’
families. For example, GE rolled out in 2015 a permissive approach to paid time
off for exempt employees, where they can coordinate with their managers to take
the time off and receive enhanced parental leave benefits. GE employees can now
take up to ten weeks of parental leave (six paid and four unpaid) after the
birth or adoption of a baby. Through the “Moms on the Move” program, GE moms in
the US who are nursing and traveling for business can ship their milk back home
for their babies.
As
you can see, becoming an integrated boss that provides safety and connection
for others does not only make good business sense (because it provides a
foundation for radical innovation); it also improves our quality of life and
overall happiness.
About Dr. Sunnie Giles:
Dr. Sunnie Giles is a new generation expert who catalyzes organizations to produce radical innovation by
harnessing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA).
Her research reveals that applying concepts from
neuroscience, complex systems approach, and quantum mechanics can produce
radical innovation consistently. Her expertise is based on years as an executive
with Accenture, IBM and Samsung. Her profound, science-backed insight
is encapsulated in her leadership development program, Quantum Leadership.
An advisor to the Stanford
University Graduate School of Business, she also is a sought-after speaker and
expert source, having been quoted in Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur,
Fast Company, Forbes, and Inc.
Dr. Giles’
latest book, The New Science of Radical Innovation, provides a clear process for radical innovation
that produces 10x improvements and has been endorsed prominent industry
leaders such as Jonathan Rosenberg, Daniel Pink, Marshall Goldsmith and Sean
Covey.
