Too Much Authenticity?

There’s a great deal of advice in the social media community about the importance of being “authentic” with your friends, peeps, customers, or citizens if you want to have any impact at all. And in politics, particularly, authenticity has been embraced in reaction to the hypocrisy and self-dealing that appears to characterize so many politicians once they get elected.

Twenty presidential elections ago, in 1937, the White House social bureau mistakenly sent Franklin D. Roosevelt an invitation to attend his own upcoming inauguration.

Unable to resist this golden opportunity, Roosevelt at first advised his press office with regret that he would be unable to attend the inauguration due to the press of other business. Later he sent a note explaining, in his own handwriting, “I have rearranged my engagements and think I may be able to go. Will know definitely by January 19. – F.D.R.”

What a kidder. If Twitter had only been available to Roosevelt, just imagine the possibilities:

@realFDR: Just invited to attend my own Inauguration. THANK GOODNESS! Was on edge of my seat!

@realFDR: Looking forward to first Inauguration since repeal of Prohibition ha ha ha #LMAO #BestNewDeal

@realFDR: To get anything done next term we’ll need more progressives on SCOTUS! No reason not to add more justices #justwatchme

There is no doubt that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social tools have radically changed the character of communications. Whether it’s Hong Kong demonstrators using FireChat to evade Chinese government oversight, or Dove’s “Real Beauty” sketches on Facebook, or just following the Kardashians’ every moment on Twitter, the way people get information today has been transformed, both for good and for bad.  

But authenticity, as both a social media aspiration and a leadership virtue, is an often misunderstood concept. In her 2015 Harvard Business Review article “The Authenticity Paradox,” INSEAD professor Herminia Ibarra cautions that “Authenticity has become the gold standard for leadership. But a simplistic understanding of what it means can hinder your growth and limit your impact.” 

After all, what if your authentic self is self-important, mean-spirited, or vindictive? Do you become more “authentic” by giving your passions free rein on the world stage, or as a leader? Is that what your peeps or your followers are looking for?

Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer decries the nearly universal call for more “authentic leadership” as just so much “BS.” In his 2015 book entitled…uh… Leadership BS, he includes a section on “Why Authentic Leadership is Not Desirable.” Pfeffer argues that while the straightforward definition of the word means being “in tune” with your basic nature and revealing this nature to others, the really useful how-to-get-ahead books argue just the opposite. Sheryl Sandberg’s very popular Lean In, for instance, tells women to do whatever it takes, “regardless of how they feel, how they have been trained, or what seems to be comfortable in the moment.”

In fairness to my friend Bill George, however, who has authored a series of very insightful books on authentic leadership, the dictionary definition of authenticity is not what the movement is about. An “authentic” leader is not someone who just shows up naked and unarmed. George argues that truly authentic leaders have five important traits:

1. They pursue their purpose with passion;
2. They practice solid values;
3. They lead with their hearts as well as their heads;
4. They establish connected relationships; and
5. They demonstrate self-discipline.

But these traits don’t come to everyone naturally. So Pfeffer suggthat the most effective leaders act the part. They are not so much authentic as they are inspiring and persuasive, a great deal of which involves acting. A good leader is someone who acts like a good leader would act, even if he or she doesn’t truly fit the part.

In 1986 Harriet Rubin founded the “Currency” imprint at Doubleday, which published business books. During more than a decade at Currency, Harriet came into contact with many different CEOs and business leaders, from Nike’s Phil Knight to Starbucks’ Howard Schultz and Intel’s Andy Grove. Martha Rogers and I worked extensively ourselves with Harriet when she edited our first book, The One to One Future, first published in 1993. She is a perceptive and very intelligent editor, and she made our book much better than it would ever have been without her (thank you, Harriet!).

In 2007, Rubin wrote an interesting article for Strategy & Business magazine entitled “Shall I Compare Thee to an Andy Grove?” in which she suggested that one of the most important abilities for any good leader is simply to be a great actor. Being a successful leader, according to Rubin, “always had to do with pretense, playing a role, and the theatrical arts.” One of her stories of Andy Grove’s leadership at Intel was how he concentrated on building up the acting abilities of his senior managers:

“Grove insisted that his brilliant but shy managers attend a seminar they called ‘wolf school.’ Attendees learned how to lean into a superior’s face and shout out an idea or proposal. By dramatically showing a fierce belief in themselves, they would convince Intel’s hard-nosed managers of the value of their idea. If they didn’t feel fierce, they had to pretend. The message: Act powerful and you become powerful. Teach your murmuring voice to howl.”

Rubin then confessed that many of the leaders she had met and got to know through helping them to edit their books were not authentic at all, not really:

“...many leaders I met seemed to be at their strongest when they were most inauthentic. It was as if their reserves of character had been created not by digging out their authentic selves, but by playing a character.”

For all of authenticity’s positive connotations, in other words, getting things done within any large organization involves the very difficult task of coordinating different people’s actions, whether the project involves going into a new market, controlling costs better, or launching a new foreign policy.

Leaders inspire others, not just through words but by personal example. People who can’t act the part need not apply.