What is an authentic leader?
Authentic leadership can be defined as an indispensable tool, which enables a leader to fully engage people and deliver superior results by doing so. It is the passion and capability to transparently engage your team members and then move towards achieving a common goal.
It does not include any kinds of tips and tricks, copying others or as a matter of fact trying to be perfect. The actual idea of being an authentic leader revolves around an ancient model that comprises three Cs, namely Competency, Character and Context. It involves three steps namely embracing the authentic leadership framework, identifying the leadership situation to apply the checklist and then last but not the least apply the checklist to your situation.
Authentic leadership
As mentioned above, authentic leadership is nowhere about tips and tricks, its all about a lifelong pursuit to grow your capabilities. A major component that the leadership framework uses is that it tells you that you lead inside out. So, it really matters as to who you actually are.
In this corporate world today, where we need more authentic leaders than just managers, it is important to have a positive, productive and proactive way of talking to leaders about developing the right kind of character and developing the right kind of behaviour for being an authentic leader.
The point here is that for being an authentic leader, you don’t actually have to be that perfect role model. Its not mandated that you demonstrate perfectionism in every aspect of leadership, but you surely have to demonstrate a certain level of competency.
So, overall an authentic leadership can only be developed when there is a deep level of understanding of self, which includes the recognition of one’s own beliefs, values, psychological state etc and a following a behaviour pattern that reflects the values you believe in. Self monitoring and self consistency are the key metrics here.
Ways to become an Authentic leader
Self-consistency is one such quality which is absolutely indispensable towards becoming an authentic leader .The quality of self consistency requires you to make yourself a priority in terms of taking out time to reflect on your behaviour and understand what’s lacking and where. It also consists of making sure that your behaviour should be in sync with your ideals and principles. This as a matter of fact can only be practised when you religiously follow a practice of self-monitoring. Its important to remember that in order to be an authentic leader, you must practice self consistency thoroughly.
The second major component of being an authentic leader is being resilient. This is all about how quickly you bounce back toi being normal from a stressful situation or an undesirable change. Examples of stressful events can include anything from a severe illness, the loss of a job or even a promotion that comes loaded with new responsibilities. A the occurrence of these events, it is very much possible that some people will have difficulty adapting to these new changes, whereas others will go back to their comfort zones very quickly. Those in the latter category are said to be more resilient and resilience is one of the key component of being an authentic leader.
Conclusion:-
Jignesh Barsara as a business enterpreneur highly believes in practicing being an authentic leader and you can do the same as an entrepreneur.