Chapter 4: Be Yourself Better: Why Passion And Conviction Are Essential To Inspiring Leaders

Authenticity in leadership is crucial. It builds trust. Without trust, you cannot be an inspiring leader. But how do you show more of who you are and what you believe in, in a way that engages and motivates? Follow these 10 steps to help you articulate your personal purpose and values, be more authentic and passionate with your followers, and generate more trust.

On the night before the big conference, my CEO rejected his speech.

Not good. Really, really, not good.

My team had spent weeks writing the speech with little input from him, receiving helpful but second-hand guidance from his chief of staff. They had also received advice from an editorial committee drawn together from across the organization. Our CEO had been too busy to give them time. Even with all the help from people who knew him well, the writers had had to intuit what should be in his speech, which was to be delivered at a major conference on customer care. More than 500 people would be in the audience, all of whom had paid to be there, and the event would be filmed for broadcast on the organizer’s website and reported on by the media.

As speeches go, it was a pretty good one. It was witty, snappy and well researched. My CEO thought so too. The only problem was, it wasn’t ‘his’. It wasn’t the way he spoke and it didn’t say the key things about the organization that he wanted to say, the things he was most passionate about. Because he didn’t ‘own’ it and believe it, he would not be able to deliver it with conviction and would not be authentic, he said.

(It would have been nice if he had at least found the time to look at it the day before and given us 24 hours to respond. The night before was cutting it fine.)

‘What to do?’ he asked.

‘Well, what do you want to say?’

‘I want to talk about service recovery and use that to illustrate points about our customer care ethos,’ he said. (Now that would have been really nice to know.)

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘then let me teach you the countdown technique. Think of the movie High Noon – where vengeful criminals are on the way to town directly from the jail you put them in. They want to kill you at the appointed hour of 12 o’clock. The clock is ticking away the seconds that will lead to this catastrophic moment. Using the countdown method is a sure-fire way to grab the audience’s attention.’

‘Sounds great, but what story will we tell?’

Just a few months before, the company had been involved in a high-profile service breakdown, due to circumstances way beyond its control. Staff from all over the organization had joined hands to aid customers and ensure they were not inconvenienced for too long. It had been a mammoth effort that drew on the natural desire of our staff to be of good service, our ability to be highly responsive to customers because of our detailed knowledge of them, and an ability to call on suppliers who were wedded to our customer ethos. Things had got back to normal very quickly and had resulted in a flood of grateful letters of praise from hundreds of customers.

My CEO had been intimately involved in the recovery programme, and needed little in the way of speechwriting to recall exactly what had happened. This was it. We had the story and it perfectly illustrated what he wanted to say.

Now we just needed some prompts to enable him to recall the key moments of the episode in the right sequence. We produced a few slides simply showing stages in the countdown to the disaster, describing all the factors that had converged to create the catastrophe. Then one slide to illustrate the big bang moment. And a few more slides filled with customer quotes that enabled him to talk to the key points he wanted to make about service recovery and customer care. He was happy. He could make heroes out of our staff. Better still, he seemed keen to get out there.

I was unable to attend the conference and waited nervously for news of his performance. When, finally, a member of staff called, the news was overwhelmingly positive. Our CEO had been a star! He had paced the stage with passion and conviction and had told the story brilliantly. Questions from the floor had been almost reverent and eventually had to be cut short with many hands still raised.

Instinctively, my CEO had realized a great truth about leadership. If you don’t believe what you’re saying, you won’t convince anyone. If what you’re saying doesn’t come from your own passions and beliefs, you will be inauthentic and unconvincing. Worse, people may see your lack of conviction, realize the falsity of your words and mistrust your motives. And if you lose people’s trust, you cannot lead them. Nor can you influence them.

Instead of taking the easy route and obediently reading what he had been given, my CEO decided not to put his leadership at risk like that. In the end, he had simply told a story he cared about and did not read a perfectly crafted speech. The story he told was the insider’s background to a well-publicized service breakdown, so he was revealing the secrets about what had really happened to an audience who already knew all about the incident. He cared passionately about customers and glowed with pride at the customer comments, and naturally spoke highly of how all the staff had pulled together, without much urging, to stage a magnificent recovery. He told the story his way, in his words, from the heart. Although what he said was not perfectly scripted, it was hugely impactful.

Authenticity in leadership is crucial.

At its most simple it’s about being true to yourself and true to others. If you’re going to get your messages across and influence the way people behave, then there has to be trust in you as an individual and in what you say. When trust in you goes, cynicism takes its place. It is incredibly difficult to influence cynical people or people who are sceptical about your motives.

Followers want someone they can believe in. Followers respond best to leaders who have a strong strategic focus with a clear vision of where they should be going, leaders who speak plainly and truthfully and, when necessary, courageously and with principles. They especially like leaders who stand up for them and defend them to the hilt. Leaders with a strong set of values built on honesty and openness and respect for other people are the most inspirational of all. They are predictable and they are human. Followers want leaders to be accessible, with genuine humility and even, occasionally, vulnerability. They want to be trusted and in turn to trust their leader.

One of the keys to being trusted is visibility. There are so many ways today that you can make yourself more visible, whether you run a small team or a global organization. You can convey your personality on a global webinar as well as you can in face-to-face sessions. People notice whether you’re willing to engage on the things that really matter, no matter how difficult. If you don’t show up, they won’t believe in your courage, and they won’t trust that you have the conviction to do the right thing.

When you show up, you’re going to have to learn how to be yourself better. People cannot trust you if they don’t know who you are and what you believe in. You have to have the confidence to be you and deliver your personal brand with conviction. Whether you like it or not, you will have a brand. People will talk about you when you’re not in the room, and what they say about you is your brand. The question is, what will they be saying? How can you influence what they say?

The first thing to remember is that a brand is what a brand does. What you believe will show through. A beautiful piece of writing attributed to Lao Tse, a philosopher of ancient China and the author of the Tao Te Ching, says the following:

‘Watch your thoughts, they become words;

Watch your words, they become actions;

Watch your actions, they become habits;

Watch your habits, they become your character; and

Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.’

Whether you like it or not, your personal values and the things you believe important will show through in your actions and in the things you focus on. That’s what people will see and that’s what will communicate your brand. To help you, you need to articulate those values to yourself and take the time to write them out and consider them. Better that you do that and use them deliberately, for they will out, often in ways that you are likely to be completely unaware of.

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Ron Dennis, the Executive Chairman of the McLaren group, which encompasses McLaren racing, McLaren Applied Technologies and McLaren Automotive. I saw an example of what I am talking about at work.

Waiting to see him in the reception of the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking in the UK, I was happily observing the Formula One cars on display. A colleague of his, who had received me, asked me if I could tell from the line-up of cars when Ron Dennis had taken over as leader of the McLaren Formula One team.

It transpired that you could see it, because from that moment on the cars were always more aesthetic in their design. Ron, he said, was fixated with aesthetics. I was then regaled with several stories about how Ron paid close attention to detail and often personally oversaw those things that he believed required his eye for aesthetics. The whole organization knew that this was something he cared about deeply, even obsessively, and that he paid careful attention to the tiniest of details.

A little later, during my interview with him, I asked Ron about the values of McLaren. He spoke about innovation, creativity and a commitment to excellence. He said the group had one goal: to win. He never mentioned aesthetics.

Treading carefully, I asked him what a member of staff would have to do to really annoy him. ‘Oh,’ he said vehemently, ‘that’s really easy. It would be to do with aesthetics.’

Even though this was not expressed in the corporate values, it was clearly something that was driven into the organization as a powerful value that dictated how his followers behaved. They took their signals from Ron’s behaviours and what he focused on.

When you are using your authenticity knowingly and to positive benefit, it brings real business benefits. When leaders are truly authentic, they are able to build strong relationships and trust. If those relationships are about mutual benefit, then you will be able to deal with conflict and difficult situations when the going gets tough. You will be able to build teams that are high-performance collectives, engaged and able to deliver their full potential. You will be in touch with yourself and your people, more in tune with what is happening and therefore able to make better-informed decisions, drawing on the creativity of everyone around you. You will be able to inspire them to great achievements.

If you really want to achieve something, you have to have an emotional connection with what you have set out to do. Don’t be afraid of exposing yourself by being more emotional. All communication involves risk, and it is natural to fear that your authentic self will be rejected. The trouble is, being inauthentic is the greater risk. Authenticity is about lowering your guard and being more open about feelings, about uncertainties, about risks and issues. It is only natural to be reserved about projecting your personal beliefs on to others. But, remember this: no passion and no conviction mean no inspiration.

Here are 10 things you need to do to help you better articulate who you are and what you believe in, and enable you to be more authentic and passionate with your followers.

1. Define your purpose.

2. Define your values and your beliefs.

3. Understand your strengths. Play to them but don’t trumpet them.

4. Understand, admit to and mitigate your weaknesses.

5. Think about the seminal moments in your career and life and the key learnings that you have carried forward from those. Talk about these.

6. Map your purpose to that of your organization. Create a picture of success. Speak to that more.

7. Map your values to those of your organization. Speak to those more.

8. Show more humanity. Admit mistakes or that you don’t know. Always show respect to others.

9. Ask yourself whether you show up for the difficult conversations and are visible in challenging times.

10. Never swallow the truth. Always be optimistic, but never hide the truth.

In short: be visible, be human and be straight.

Here are some pointers on how to achieve each of the above.

Define your purpose

This, admittedly, is a tough one. Most leaders go their whole lives without articulating their own purpose statement. They spend endless hours discussing the purpose statement of the organization but no time at all on their own.

What do you want to achieve? Why do you exist? What are you here to do? Why does it matter? How does your purpose draw on the things you believe in and your view of the world? These are the questions you should be asking yourself. When you have, then write it down. The power of a statement like this gives you focus, direction and a sense of accountability to yourself about achieving your goals. It can guide your every action.

Mine? I hear you ask.

‘I believe in leadership. I believe that in the modern working environment, leadership has been undervalued, over-criticized and underappreciated. Yet great leaders can make a huge difference in people’s lives. Great leaders can make great places to work, they can help organizations grow and prosper, and they can alter the destiny of our lives. Great leaders can secure the wealth of nations and make a positive difference to many thousands of people. We need to encourage and liberate the responsible and inspiring leader in everyone.

Because of this belief, I have made it my mission to make leaders more effective by making them better, more inspiring communicators. I do this by one-to-one coaching, by training, by strategic consulting and by writing books that can help leaders everywhere. By doing this, I hope that I can make a significant difference to many thousands of people, not just the leaders I can make more inspiring but also the many more followers of the leaders I help.

Every person who is or aspires to be a leader has it in them to be a leader. They simply need to learn about what it means to be inspiring, and abandon their preconceptions about inspirational leadership.’

Can you put your purpose to words?

Define your values

Your values inform your thoughts, feelings and actions, whether you are conscious of them or not. When you surface your values and give them the power of clear articulation, they can give you greater consistency, clarity and focus. They help you to understand what is truly important to you. They allow you to be more consistent because, by following them, you will be more consistently you.

I believe that the value of values is enormous. Values are at the centre of authentic leadership. Taking time to give them clear expression will benefit every leader. Who you are and what you stand for are just as important as what you do.

A good way of starting to define your values is to find some quiet time and think about the things that inspire you. Why do they? What is it about them that lifts your spirits and makes you want to achieve more? What are the causes you believe in? Why? What does all this say about the things you believe important in life?

There are many sites online you can visit to find prompts that will enable you to identify your values. Just type in ‘Defining your values’ for example, and see what Google brings up. These sites will give you lists of words such as ‘accountability’, ‘growth’, ‘service’, ‘respect’, ‘usefulness’ or ‘vitality’. You have to look deep inside yourself and write down all the values you believe you live your life by.

Once you’ve done that, rate them on a scale of 0 to 10 in terms of how important they are to you. Focus on the top 10. Give them powerful expression. Then ask yourself whether they really are important values to you and whether they make you feel good about yourself? Are you proud enough of them to talk about them in public and would you be comfortable sharing them with people you respect and admire? Would you stand up for them even in situations where you found that your values were at odds with the majority in a room?

Once you have identified these values you will be able to use them in any situation to make the best choice, especially when you have no data to help support you. Very often some of the toughest things you have to decide are really about what you value most.

By way of example, four of my 10 most important values are respect, listening, curiosity and storytelling. I believe that everybody deserves my respect. I believe that I should always give people a damn good listening to. I believe that curiosity feeds my soul and prepares my mind for opportunities. I believe that there is a story in everything, that everybody loves a story, and that stories can move people to change.

These values have always stood me in good stead and I would hope that anyone who knows me will recognize that they are part of my character. I hold myself strictly to these beliefs and regularly berate myself when I fall short of delivering against them. If I do not look a waiter in the eye and thank him or her for the service they provided me, I have fallen short of one of my values. If I don’t try to understand someone before inflicting my point of view on them, I have sold them and myself short. If I fail to ask the important questions that could uncover truths that matter, I have shirked my responsibility. If I try to present my arguments without using a good story, I am in danger of boring people and not holding their interest. By measuring myself so strictly against my values, I establish a strong connection between them and my behaviours.

These values bring enormous benefits to me in both my personal and professional life. And, as you can see, I have the potential to talk about them for hours.

The most important thing to remember about values is this: true values are simply profound beliefs in action.

What are yours?

Understand your strengths

Do you really know what talents make you special? I’ll bet you don’t. Sometimes people who have incredible talent don’t always recognize what they’re best at. Long ago I gave up the idea that I am a well-rounded leader. I have huge weaknesses, but I have some great strengths. I know enough about my weaknesses to find people who are truly strong in areas where I am deficient. Together we can make a great team, a well-rounded team. I can be comfortable joking about where I’m weak, and confident when I am playing to my strengths.

All it takes to understand your strengths is to get a well-rounded view from people that you trust. Speak to the people who know you well and ask them to give you their view on your strengths. You will soon see a consistent pattern emerging. You might also be amazed at what they say. One of the reasons this is so important is because very often your strengths are closely linked to your beliefs and can provide clues to your deep-seated values. More importantly, when you focus on trying to mitigate your weaknesses rather than playing to your strengths, people will quickly realize that you are uncomfortable and not being true to yourself. They won’t necessarily know why, but it could well lead to them not trusting you and finding you insincere. Your strengths are what make you unique. When you lead from your strengths you are more authentic.

Very often you are happiest when you are in a strength zone and it doesn’t feel like you have to make much effort. Others will ask how you manage to do something so well, and you will say: ‘Doesn’t everyone do it that way?’ Watch out! You could well be playing to a strength.

What are the things you naturally do regularly – at work and at home – and why? When are you happiest? What are you doing when you’re happiest and who are the people you’re with? What else contributes to your happiness?

Let me give you an example of leading from your strengths. Many years ago, while working for British Airways as Director of Communications, I was asked to host a weekend in Dubai for 20 employees and their partners. These employees had been selected as the very best of the best over the previous six months. All of them had gone well beyond the call of duty to deliver excellence in customer service, backroom operations or essential duties that kept the airline running. My role was to be very visible and ensure they enjoyed the weekend and that they recognized that the airline valued what they had done. For the first two days of the weekend, all I had to do was mix and mingle as we were given a fantastic tour of Dubai and its many wonders. On the last night, at a glittering dinner that was the culmination to the weekend, it was my job to make a speech and hand them their cheques and trophies.

I was brand-new in the airline and lacked confidence talking about the operations of the company, and I certainly lacked an understanding of the roles of the various prize winners. I dreaded having to make a speech – especially one that would be so important to all of these people and their partners – and feared that I would fail to make them feel proud.

After a while, I remembered that my strengths included listening, curiosity and storytelling. (Also, as you have just read, these are deeply held values of mine.) I decided that I would lavish them with praise at the event by utilizing all of those strengths. During the two days preceding the gala dinner I spent a lot of time quizzing them about themselves. I wanted to find out all about them, what they had done and why they had gone the extra mile for customers or the airline. I made sure I understood how this had affected their families and partners. On the night of the big event, I decided not to make a speech. Instead, I simply presented each of them with their money-laden envelopes and their trophies after giving them a ‘This Is Your Life’-style account of the amazing things they had done.

They loved it. They would. It was all about them, so why wouldn’t they? Afterwards, several couples came to me to remark on how well the evening and gone and marvel at how I had managed to turn their deeds into such good and entertaining stories. Some of them were such good employees that they had been to these awards weekends before. They commented that no director had ever attempted to do it the way I had. They had enjoyed this event far more. There was no talk about the airline, no platitudes about the importance of customer service. It was simple, journalistic storytelling about what each and every one of them had done. They felt hugely appreciated and not patronized. I hope they went back to their jobs inspired and prepared to rise to the occasion again if ever the need arose.

For someone who is hugely interested in people, is naturally curious, knows how to ask good questions and listen hard to the answers, and then tell some good stories, this was an act of leadership that really was quite easy and very, very authentic.