Choosing Authenticity in a World of Change
By Jeff Kleinberg, MA, November 2004
“Do you know where you’re going to?
Do you like the things in life they’re showing you?
Where are you going to?
Do you know?”
— Diana Ross from “Lady Sings the Blues”
Are you familiar with the words to the song above? The question “Where am I going?” is one which many of us ask of ourselves at least once in a while, if not more often. How then, can you know where you are going if you do not know who you are? So many things to buy, so many obligations to fulfill, facades to maintain, “things” to do – so many priorities. In the face of continuous and sweeping change, it is easy to become lost even if we thought that we had a sense of direction only a short time ago. Changes in the workplace, in technology and the environment (both locally and globally) directly affect all of our relationships — those with our colleagues and friends, partners, spouses, family and children. Collectively all the internal and external pieces of our life systems directly and indirectly affect who we are as individuals, trying to figure out the game of life as the rules keep shifting and changing.
There is, however, at least one constant available to you that can act as an anchor throughout your life. Believe it or not, that anchor is you. While you may have a strong formal support network (advisors, coaches/mentors, consultants, spiritual guides) or informal support network (spouse, significant other, family, friends, community activities), the one person you can count on 100 percent of the time is you. This has nothing to do with being perfect or not needing the support or counsel of others. If you disagree or doubt the integrity of these words maybe you are disagreeing with yourself. Do you really know who you are? Do you know where you want to be versus where you are going? Who will you be once you have “arrived” at your destination? Part of The Voisen Cooperative’s mission is to facilitate people toward discovering their true, authentic and inner self. No, this doesn’t necessarily mean “touchy-feely” work, as some would call it. It does mean doing some things and thinking about yourself differently.
Authenticity means being genuine, which means being our real selves. Many people operate off a set of beliefs and principles that may currently act like a brick wall or shield protecting their ego from exposure by others. We all, at one time or another, come to believe notions about ourselves, first from our parents and caretakers, then later from our schooling, peer relationships, life experiences and the environment. These beliefs are not the core reality of who we are but many still accept early life notions, distorted beliefs, and values about who they were as they were growing up. These patterns of belief affect many people’s life today, years after the “programming” began.
For instance, if you came to believe you were fat, ugly or stupid – no matter how you came to believe that – you may have become one of those things simply because you somehow and somewhere believed that this is a core truth about yourself. On the other hand, persons may starve themselves to death, spend countless hours “getting ready” or spending money on plastic surgery, striving to earn multiple degrees, acquire mass amounts of money, intellect or status in an unconscious effort to “prove everyone wrong.” Living in either extreme on this continuum takes psychic energy which does not allow a person to be real and authentic, and therefore, many individuals live day in and day out protecting a false sense of self of who they believe they really are at the core of their being.
Why Authenticity Matters — The Bottom Line
Admittedly you might be reading this and wondering why or how the notion of authenticity should appeal to you. Being authentic directly affects the bottom line. Whether you are the CEO or president of a business or a manager or an associate, or even self-employed, being inauthentic takes time and energy that most of us don’t have today, which can in turn affect performance and productivity, relationships, and self-esteem. Being authentic and genuine does not mean you give up having professional and personal boundaries. It does not mean going around to everyone and spouting on every minute detail of your life, nor does it imply blatant or generalized trust to those who surround you. It simply means being who you are without all the facades or niceties that once meant survival or your perception of what it took to get by. Authenticity does take a degree of:
- Maturity and development
- Integrity
- Congruency
- Self-awareness
- Accountability and responsibility, and
- Continuous learning, growth, and improvement
You need not give up anything in order to achieve a place of authenticity either. What you could gain however, is limitless and you may see through clearer lenses from which you can find your personal and professional mission and vision in life. Authenticity promotes greater clarity and greater clarity results in the achievement of goals, increased performance, and the attainment of dreams in both the personal and professional spheres of one’s life.
In Confucianism there is a principle called Jen. This principle refers to the belief that there is goodness, pure goodness, at the center of our being where the self or the spirit can be found. Each person is perceived to be good when they are their true [selves]. The principle of Jen implies that one cannot help but be pure when they are themselves. Lives take on a toxic quality when we ignore our authentic selves and listen to the false self. (Dyer 1991, pg. 287, Your Sacred Self)
Contemporary psychologist Carl Rogers’ most critically acclaimed work involved the development of three key ingredients: genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and understanding – all of which profess that change agents be themselves, have complete nonjudgmental regard for another, and the ability to empathize with another’s experience. The leaders within today’s organizations are but visionaries and change agents whom guide, mentor and coach the development of their employees, customers and associates toward integrated and synergistic organizational strategies as they swim through continual change, chaos and turbulence. The elements of genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and understanding lead directly to permanent and lasting change through authenticity, trust and understanding. These elements are absolutes and cannot be faked.
How Do I Get There?
Becoming authentic has less to do with getting “somewhere” and more to do with beginning a journey that continues until you leave this earth. Many of our elders model authenticity because developmentally they have reached a place where they know what truly matters and what does not. They no longer choose to or “have” to pretend.
One step toward becoming authentic is to ask yourself some questions. “Who am I? Do I know? Was there a time in my life when I did know? Are there people I admire or respect because they appear to be genuine? What are the qualities I most admire about them? What can I gain from being more authentic in my life? What do I risk by choosing a path of authenticity?” This is by no means an exhaustive list but you can begin this process by asking yourself these and similar questions.
The “Ingredients” of Authenticity
Maturity and Development — Assess your level of maturity and development. How emotionally equipped are you to handle the various systems (personal and professional) in your life? If you’ve got some unfinished business, this is the place to take care of it. If you can still hear your mom or dad’s voice inside your head saying, “You’ll never amount to squat. Who do you think you are?” and you believe on some level that that message is true, then this is the point in time where you can challenge those voices and own your true qualities – the good stuff hiding behind the garbage of old messages and distorted beliefs.
Integrity and Congruency — Check your level of integrity on a day-to-day basis. Are you entering into solid, honest and respectful dealings with your executives, managers, and associates? What about the home front – do you have integrity with your spouse, children, family, or significant other? Are you congruent? Do your actions and behaviors match the words you speak? If you say one thing and do another, not only are you being inauthentic, you are fostering and perpetuating your own self-imposed, limited and antiquated system of self-doubt, while at the same time promoting mistrust in others because they will not trust your ability to be consistent with them and the world. And in turn you “get” to believe what others may have said about you as you were growing up.
Self-Awareness — As you begin to get a better sense of who you are in the world you begin to see things from a more meta view – you become the observer in your own life. By taking this position you not only diffuse any type of reactivity or ego involvement, you are able to make clearer and more informed choices about whom you will be in differing situations. “Do I choose to wear the mask? Do I choose to believe limited ideologies about myself? Do I want to be free to express my opinion without bullying, condescending or placating?” There are a number of activities a person can engage in that lead to self-awareness, including spiritual guidance (church, temple, religious or spiritual affiliation), prayer or meditation, time in nature or journaling. Self-awareness is also promoted through professional associations with counselors, therapists, or psychologists, not to mention trusted mentors, guides, and professional coaches.
Accountability and Responsibility — Are you taking appropriate measures to be accountable for your actions, thoughts, and behaviors? Do you blame, yell, and do the passive-aggressive number on others? If so, how effective do you think those actions are in getting your point across? Are you being authentic when you’re in a moment of blaming, raging or pointing the finger? How much respect do you wield by engaging in those types of behaviors? Being accountable means taking ownership of your actions. If you are unable to take ownership of your authenticity, it most likely will be quite a challenge for you to accept responsibility for the plans that you set forth. The first step is to be accountable and consistently responsible for being your authentic self, both at home and in the office. The rest assuredly will follow. And yes, this means being humble and sometimes admitting that you have made a mistake.
Challenge the Duality — One of the unwritten rules in organizations is not being yourself in what you do. That is an impossibility. We are not machines or clocks and we cannot “turn” a part of ourselves off, take it out, and leave it at home. We are humans, even though corporate America would like to negate that concept every so often. So, challenge old paradigms of what you think you’re “supposed” to be in any situation and try being yourself. Isn’t it interesting how society (rules of the workplace or other organizations) mirrors some of what we have come to believe through our family and early life experiences?
Continuous Learning, Growth, and Improvement — Our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents believed that life was a one-way ticket down a fairly predictable path. You’re born, you go to school, you marry, work, have children, retire, and die. Today there is very little predictability left and things are changing so rapidly that we must keep up with the wings of change or allow ourselves to be trampled to death by it. As you begin to embrace or at least ponder authenticity, you can “relax” in knowing it doesn’t have to be done right here, right now, and that’s that. No way. Authenticity is part of a lifelong journey of continuous learning (personally and organizationally), training and technological opportunities, growth (personal, professional, financial, relational, collegial, etc.) and improvement. Being authentic allows us opportunities to not struggle, but to just be who we are, the real inner self. And while some may perceive of this as happening only through some expensive self-help workshop, spiritual or Buddhist retreat, think again. This is available to all of us right now, if we choose to hold on to it, do something with it, and trust that it’s taking us where we want and need to be. In a very real sense then, choosing to be authentic in our personal and professional lives definitely affects the bottom line every day.