Authentic leadership was never supposed to mean “I’m just being myself.”
When the idea first came out, it described leaders who knew themselves, stayed consistent with their principles, were open with people, and didn’t make every decision from inside their own head. Somewhere along the way we flattened all of that into permission to say whatever we think.
You can see where that’s landed us. A lot of leaders right now operate straight from their default mode and call it authenticity, and I’m not sure that’s the standard most of us want to work under.
The way I see it, being an authentic leader means staying true to your purpose in the role, which won’t always line up with your first thought or instinct. Sometimes that means speaking up when you’d rather stay quiet, and other times it means listening when your instinct is to take over and dialing yourself down a bit.
You haven’t stopped being authentic in any of those moments. You’ve gotten more intentional about how you show up, and that’s the part that makes your leadership effective once authenticity gets you started.
