Leadership without trust is like a house built without a foundation. It may stand for a while, but when challenges or adversity arise, it will inevitably crumble. What is the key to building trust? Authenticity.
Too often, leaders feel pressure to perform, to hit targets, reach KPIs, and prove themselves through metrics. But this can come at the expense of connecting with their teams. Instead of focusing on managing perceptions, great leaders build authentic relationships. People follow leaders they trust, not just those who perform well, but those who show up with authenticity, vulnerability, and consistency.
At Steople, we believe authenticity is much more than just a buzzword; it’s a daily practice and a crucial pillar of our Leading for Performance and Wellbeing model™. When leaders show up as their true selves, they create an environment where others feel seen, heard, and safe to contribute.
What Does It Mean to Lead Authentically?
We all know someone who acts one way in one context and entirely differently in another. Authentic leadership is about being congruent with words and actions, values with behaviour. It’s about staying true to who you are, admitting when you don’t have all the answers, and lifting others up, even if it means missing out on accolades.
Bill George of Harvard Business School defines authentic leaders as those who:
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Know who they are and what they believe in
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Lead with purpose and heart
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Build enduring relationships
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Demonstrate self-discipline and consistency
Authenticity isn’t about oversharing or being overly emotional. It’s about showing up in ways that are real, human, and congruent with who you are, especially when it’s hard.
The Link Between Authenticity, Performance and Wellbeing
Why does authenticity matter so much at work? Because authenticity builds trust. And trust fuels:
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Psychological safety
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Honest communication
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Increased engagement
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Improved team performance
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Resilience during change
A global study by Great Place to Work® found that employees who trusted their leaders were:
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2x more likely to be engaged
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3x more likely to recommend their workplace
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5x more likely to say their leaders support wellbeing
Ultimately, we all want to work for leaders who are real with us, and who we feel safe enough to be real with too. This is the kind of dynamic that drives team cohesion and long-term success.
A Story of Transformation: James, the Project Manager
James is a project manager at a tech company who learned the power of authentic leadership. James inherited a highly dysfunctional team. There was little trust between team members, and they weren’t well-liked by the wider organisation. The team consistently missed deadlines and produced work full of mistakes, and morale was low.
Instead of pushing harder for performance or focusing solely on metrics, James did something different. He made time to genuinely connect with each team member. He listened to their concerns, understood their individual strengths, and helped them feel heard and seen. He didn’t have all the answers at first, and he wasn’t afraid to admit that. He focused on solving problems together, leaning on and respecting their individual expertise and input.
Through his authenticity and vulnerability, James created an environment where people began to trust each other. The team members started showing up for one another, collaborating more effectively, and even holding each other accountable in ways they hadn’t before. Over time, their performance dramatically improved, and their relationship with the organisation changed for the better. What once was a dysfunctional team became one of the best-performing, with high levels of trust and respect both internally and with external stakeholders.
This transformation didn’t happen overnight, but it began with James being authentic, vulnerable, and open to the needs of his team. When leaders take the time to get to know their people and invest in their development, trust flourishes, and high performance follows.
How We Coach for Authenticity
At Steople, our executive coaching often begins with helping leaders uncover and articulate their authentic voice. We explore what kind of leader they want to be, what values matter most to them, and what behaviours they need to demonstrate to bring that leadership to life.
Then, we start peeling back the layers that no longer serve them or align with the type of leader they want to be. It’s not about crafting a new persona; it’s about removing the masks and showing up as the person you truly are.
Our executive coaches support leaders by helping them:
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Clarify core values and leadership principles
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Reflect on defining moments and leadership narratives
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Build courage to lead from identity, not imitation
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Practice transparent and congruent communication
Using evidence-based assessments and one-on-one deep work, we help leaders understand how their authentic leadership presence impacts trust, motivation, and team dynamics. We also focus on the risks, because authentic leadership isn’t always easy. Being genuine can mean acknowledging blind spots, sharing uncertainty, or challenging established norms. But with the right support, our coaching helps leaders navigate these moments with confidence, skill, and intention.
Authenticity Is the Future of Leadership
In a world of constant change, automation, and fatigue, what people crave is something deeply human: real connection. Authentic leaders don’t pretend to have all the answers. Instead, they create space for collaboration, ask insightful questions, and model honesty and accountability.
In doing so, they create teams and cultures that are psychologically safe, emotionally intelligent, and high-performing. At Steople, we believe that the most impactful leadership development begins with self-awareness and authenticity. Because when leaders bring their whole selves to work, they make it safe for others to do the same and that’s where strong teams are formed, and great work is achieved.
Ready to Build More Authentic Leaders?
Contact us at info@steople.com.au or visit steople.com.au to learn how our leadership development programs can help your leaders grow in self-awareness, trust, and influence.
Our relationship with authenticity can be complicated. For some, the idea of being transparent and open in dealing with others is terrifying. Others insist on wearing their pulsing heart on their sleeve, exposed for all to see. Most of us vacillate between some degree of openness and pulling down the shutters, depending on our situation and with whom we are engaging.
In this uncertain era of fake news, incessant and accelerating social media flow and the exponential rise of artificial intelligence, it is perhaps not surprising that there is reinvigorated interest in seeking to understand authenticity and the role it plays in leadership.
In her Article The Authenticity Paradox, Herminia Ibarra puts forward a case against a simplistic application of authenticity in leadership and suggests that to do so can ‘hinder your growth and limit your impact’. In this case, a simplistic application includes full disclosure and ‘maintaining strict coherence between what you say and what you do’. Unfortunately, since Ibarra illustrates the point by using a simplistic interpretation of authentic leadership herself, the critique feels altogether too easy and unsatisfying. She wrongly implies that authentic leaders are overly introspective, somehow less likely to experiment with styles and apt to fail if they show vulnerability. The key message seems to be that the risk of being real is too high and that in leadership it may be better to learn to ‘fake’ it rather than try to authentically engage with others.
But the idea that we can be duped by simulated authentic behaviour is fundamentally unnerving. We are hyper-sensitised to the sales pitch that feigns authenticity in an attempt to win our trust and our dollars. When we perceive phoney interaction from others, we generally react by either turning on the fakery ourselves and dancing a disingenuous relationship or by pulling back to a safe emotional distance and engaging in superficial communication only. If we are honest, many of our workplace interactions operate in this way and for much of the time that may be just fine. But is it okay if you are in a leadership role?
Karissa Thacker, in her book, The Art of Authenticity, points out that the ‘level of psychological sophistication and depth required to connect, relate, and achieve in partnership with others has accelerated in the past 15 years.’
Social media has drained the swamp on us all, publicly exposing a lot more of who we are than was previously the case. Flatter structures and the rise of the agile knowledge worker, un-beholden to any organisation, have greatly increased the leadership challenge of influencing others. But perhaps the strongest driver of follower demand for leadership authenticity is the need to reaffirm meaning in our lives. In the sometimes surreal and fearful Blade Runner-esque world we live in, one where the line between fake and real is increasingly blurred, we are drawn to leaders we perceive to be the real thing. In these times, Thacker believes ‘cultivating authenticity is the key to flourishing.’
In our work with hundreds of leaders, sometimes in one-on-one coaching situations and at other times intact top teams, five key elements emerge that usefully describe Authentic Leadership.
- Self-awareness – seeks feedback, reflects and thoughtfully processes feelings, and is aware of their own bias.
- Learning mindset – open to ideas, seeks to understand and looks for opportunity.
- Values others – actively listens and acts with positive intent, seeks to understand and collaborates effectively.
- Walks the talk – behaves in ways that are aligned with personal values, follows through on commitments and leads by example.
- Able to have real conversations that matter – honest interaction and able to discuss what really matters with others, appropriately expresses emotions and invites others to do the same, and has the courage to be vulnerable
As we integrate this model into our work with leaders, it’s apparent that all five elements need to be present in some degree for strong authentic leadership to exist. For example, there are plenty of leaders who walk the talk and act in ways aligned with their personal values, but do not cut it as authentic leaders because they don’t actively listen to what others have to say, or they do not process feedback effectively, or they are not capable of identifying and constructively having conversations that really matter.
Being true to ourselves may bring us closer to being authentic individuals but it is not enough to make us effective authentic leaders. To be an authentic leader, who genuinely inspires and positively influences others, followers must experience all five elements through leadership behaviour. The good news is that, provided there is a level of awareness and motivation, most of us can learn to modify our behaviour and become more authentic leaders.
The most contentious and challenging element of authentic leadership is having the courage to be vulnerable. The idea that showing vulnerability is an essential leadership quality sits uncomfortably with a lot of existing and aspiring leaders. Especially for men, who still overwhelmingly make up the majority of the corporate leadership population, vulnerability is most often equated with weakness. To avoid being perceived as weak, leaders ‘armour up’ and erect a variety of vulnerability shields. The irony is that openly acknowledging vulnerability requires far more strength than armouring up.
We know from Brene Brown’s transformational research that, while vulnerability never feels comfortable, it is the ‘birthplace of creativity, innovation and trust’. It is also at the heart of the feedback process so it is essential for creating learning organisations, able to quickly adapt and continue to flourish. Receiving feedback well and growing requires us to be vulnerable.
Brown highlights the common and paradoxical belief that ‘vulnerability is the last thing you want to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.’ We look for signs of vulnerability in others to confirm the humanness that enables us to connect. Without the courage to be vulnerable, leaders cannot truly connect, cannot build strong relationships, cannot engender trust, cannot create a culture that genuinely encourages talent to take risks and accept accountability, and ultimately, cannot effectively lead. Or to re-quote Thacker, without vulnerability leaders ‘cannot achieve the level of psychological sophistication and depth required to connect, relate, and achieve in partnership’.
Leaders who are not authentic will continue to exist and some will even succeed for a time. They may have good ideas, be great problem solvers, exert positional power to make things happen or even perceive themselves to be the most stable genius in the room. But they will not be great leaders.
Increasingly, leaders who work towards authenticity and engage with vulnerability will outperform, especially over the longer term, because social and technological advances are converging to create a hunger in us all for authentic leadership. Talented followers will choose to work with authentic leaders and demand that they keep it real.