Authenticity is important because when our words and actions don't match people don't trust us. And, without trust, it's very difficult to get things done in an organization. In this episode, learn how to be more authentic, lead from the heart and develop alignment on purpose!
Why lead from your heart, particularly at work? And, what's the big deal about authentic leadership anyway? Does it really matter that much?
We answer these questions (and more!) in this episode of Leading Through Crisis with people and culture changemaker, Mike Horne.
Mike is the author of Integrity by Design: Living and Working Authentically, as well as the host of the Authentic Change podcast.
He reminds us that authenticity is important because when our words and actions don't match people don't trust us. And, "if I don't trust you, I won't think you have integrity. And, if you don't have integrity, I surely won't trust you. It's a vacuous cycle."
Without trust, it's very difficult to get things done in an organization.
That, and people who are authentic (who have alignment in their thoughts, words and actions) are more congruent. Congruent people are more consistently happy. And, employees want to work for happy people.
According to Gallup, "70% of an employee's engagement is within managerial control." So, how do we use that to our advantage, instill loyalty and contentment, as well as protect our companies against "the big quit" or "great resignation" of 2021?
Listen in to find out.
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To learn more about Mike Horne, you can find him online at https://mike-horne.com/. Or, on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikehorne1/), Instagram or Twitter (@mikehorneauthor).
- I'm Celine Williams and welcome to the Leading Through Crisis podcast, a conversation series, exploring resiliency and leadership in challenging times. My guest today is Mike Horne, who is a people and culture change maker, he helps smart people to develop and sustain authentic and rewarding relationships with colleagues and customers. He's also the author of, "Integrity by Design Working and Living Authentically" and hosts his own podcast, "Living Authentically" which is an awesome name for a podcast. Welcome to the show Mike.
Well, I'm so glad to be here with you Celine. Actually the podcast, the current podcast is titled, "Authentic Change with Mike Horne" and we can talk more about that later, but I love that as an alternative name, so I might use that as a tagline.
Please do.
I love serendipitous events.
Absolutely, I love that and I love Authentic Change, also a great, great title for a podcast or anything to do with change 'cause sometimes it feels so inauthentic.
Yeah, so it's, you know, I hope that we're able to explore this in our conversation today, authenticity and what does it mean? It's certainly a word that's used quite a bit and also to think about its relationship to integrity and the worlds of work and presence and bringing your best and bringing more of who you are to every situation. So look forward doing engaging a discussion with you on those topics and on those topics that are of interest to your listeners and the intent of your podcast.
Absolutely, I'm excited to talk about those things. I have the topic of authenticity comes up so often with whether it's people I work with, whether it's, you know, out speaking, whether it's on the podcast, that the idea of authenticity and how misunderstood, I think it often is, comes up a lot. So I'm very excited to talk about it.
That's great, me too.
And before we do that, I always like to start by asking, so sort of setting the stage, the title of the podcast is "Leading Through Crisis" and so when you hear that title, when you hear those words, I'm curious what that means to you, or what comes up for you inside of that?
Well, you know, the first thing I think about is opportunity you think about crisis and opportunity really, as a hand-in-hand events or hand in glove events, I think about, you know, leading and through, and what's the right, you know, connecting word about with, so, and I wonder how much of leadership is about crisis? Is this a particular moment in time? Is it part of our contemporary experience? So leading has so many task oriented moments to the business of attending to your direct reports, attending to your team, attending to your larger organization, attending to your networks and colleagues, so many of those activities that we take for granted in leaders are far from crisis opportunities, right? So, and some leaders have been known to create crises, right? So it's just an interesting lens into, is it a moment in time that defines us or moments in time that define us, or is it really a period of crisis? And there's probably some combination of both, right? When we think about the enormous challenges that face all of us today, relative to climate change and environmentalism, and having a safe and healthy planet, having a world free of racial injustice and a world full of justice, with all of those problems, it's easy to wonder why we easily raise the flag on our time and our nature, particularly a company, at least in the US for your US listeners, by this big quit in this great resignation that's underway. So is that a crisis? The numbers are startling about of how people are defecting.
Yeah and I think that, I mean, it's a great point, I think that that crisis is one, I think we all have different versions of what a crisis is, whether it's for ourselves or on that, you know, bigger global, whatever it is stage, and I think that a lot of times change starts with the reaction of it being a crisis, even if it ultimately is just a transition of some sort. But our first reaction is, this is a crisis because when we don't know what to do with it, and I wonder with things like this great resignation, which is a really interesting topic, how much of that is, I mean, yes, it may be a real crisis right now, but how much of it is a transition into a different way of working? How much of it is, you know, people requesting and expecting different things than the way that we designed work a hundred years ago that, you know, Ford was like, this is the way the world works and this is how we're and then everyone just went, yeah, okay, great, nine to five in this way right? Like how much of it is that rather than an actual crisis, even though right now, it feels like a crisis.
Or, you know, way from how we think about the design of work, but we have an enduring problem and maybe part of the big quit and the great resignation is a response to the enduring problem of a lot of bad management.
Oh yes.
You know, I mean, we know from, you know, decades long research from Gallup and the Q 12, that 70% of an employee's engagement is within managerial control. Maybe we're coming to a reckoning, but what do we do? You know, what are, do we fire every manager? You know, because of our depressed and declining engagement rates. And this is why I think it's so important to lead from your heart, to lead authentically, because trust underlies that, and it's a fundamental way to building the kind of innovation that sustains organizations and teams.
So I love that you connected it to authenticity, 'cause I was thinking, I wonder how much of that, because I do think that is a really important point, and I think that there is a massive crisis in leadership, in managing, you know, managers, managing whatever you wanna call it, and I'm curious how much of, and I'm not saying you have an answer, but it just makes me curious, how much of that mismanagement, let's call it, not for a moment comes from people not being authentic, and it comes from people thinking they have to do things a certain way and not actually knowing their own values as a result or knowing who they are as a result or understanding how they wanna show up? And it creates a cycle and a repetitive pattern inside of this and I don't know what the answer is, but I'm curious with everything you do with authenticity, if you have insight thoughts, anything on that.
Well, when we think about authenticity, at least when I think about it, I think about it that my actions match my words and actions match and even better that my thoughts, my actions and my words match, right, that I'm not going through somebody else's script or motion, you know, who's telling me what to do or what not to do, that I have an alignment between my attitudes, my behaviors, and my cognition's, you know, and another way of thinking about it. And it's that alignment that causes us to recognize, you know, Celine as the real thing or as a genuine article or as it has been formerly expressed a whole cloth, right? Like you couldn't tell where the cloth ended or, you know, began it is this genuine article, and so authenticity is really about congruency, you know, things line up, things match, and what we know about congruent people is that they're generally happy and I don't mean the kind of happiness that comes from having a new boyfriend or girlfriend or birth of a child or a man, I mean a kind of sustained happiness, and then the social science research is even, you know, it's additionally clear that we enjoy working for happy people. So I think there's a, you know, what do we need to do in order to encourage this within ourselves, you know, to lead from our heart, it begins with one of the things that you described Celine, which is self-awareness.
Yeah. Yep, absolutely. So I'm curious about this because I love the idea of, you know, thinking and speaking, acting all in alignment.
Right.
Right, and I'm curious about this idea because this comes up a lot, when I talk about authenticity with people, and I'm not talking about it from a, you know, exploring it as a concept, not that I have any authority on it at all, but it comes up a lot, this idea that there's people who use authenticity as an excuse to, you know, be cruel or be blunt or whatever it is, and the excuse that they hear, and I've worked with leaders and I've heard this where it's like, well, but I'm just being true to myself, I'm being authentic because I'm telling you what I'm thinking, like this becomes the excuse, and I struggle with that, people use authenticity as an excuse for behaving or acting in that way and I'm curious what your thoughts are on moments like this, like I'm guessing.
It sounds like you've met an authentic jerk. They do exist.
Yeah, yeah.
So again, my purchase come are based out of set of humanistic values, right? Respect for individuals, finding being able to grow inclusion by attracting diverse ideas and diverse people around you, treating others with dignity. So it's out of the set of humanistic values, I think that we all rise or that we rise together. You know, it also reminds me of that, sometimes people ask me well, okay, is it okay for me to tell a lie? And I go, you know, why are you asking me that question? Because I don't know the answer, but what I do know is that when I've seen, you know, leaders go down a certain path where they're not truthful, it erodes trust and without trust, it's very difficult to get things done in an organization and what I've also observed is that if I don't trust you, I won't think you have integrity, and if you don't have integrity, I surely won't trust you. So it is this vacuous cycle, right? That gives us an opportunity, maybe it's this crisis gives us an opportunity to really work at what Jung called, Carl Jung, famous psychoanalyst said, the greatest privilege of a lifetime of becoming more of who we are.
A beautiful quote, I love that. So how do you see.
There are three things that he said in that regard though, that, you know, that I think are relevant to our discussion, in the first out of that sort of, there are three statements that sort of blend into this idea about our greatest gift of becoming who we are. But the first one is, he said, you are what you say, you are what you say and do, not what you think you say and do, you know? And so it's coming to terms with, you know, really getting it. And the other part of it was that to the effect of that, you know, unless you accept yourself, you really can't begin to change any of this or to grow. And I think most leaders that I work with and probably that you experienced, I mean, to have, you know, I get to work with smart people, people who are technically competent, who have good interpersonal skills, who are building successful careers, and yet, you know, they wanna be better, but part of it is getting underneath, you know, what does it mean to be better?
Yeah.
How do you find that? I mean, in terms of crisis and leadership crisis, what will you think about that? Crises often have an opportunity to bring out the best in people and the worst in people.
Absolutely, absolutely, you definitely get a mixed bag of both, people rise to the challenge or they fall to their knees is kind of what often happens in those moments.
And integrity changes over time for people. I was just thinking about Rudy Giuliani and a book that he's sold tons of called, "Leadership" after 9\11, a big selling book, many would see him exercising a different kind of leadership today. So integrity gets tested over time, it's not that, you know, when you're 10 or 11 or 12, it's different than when you're in your twenties or different when you're in your forties, integrity isn't something that's static right, and it does though, I think grow out of a moral ethical foundation where self-awareness and understanding of values is so important. And so many people think that self-awareness is just this critical, you know, naval gazing and good self-awareness is the divide itself, it is you and the other, right? So you kind of get some feedback and use that in ways that help you to bring your best.
Absolutely, you know, I love that you said that, 'cause I think that, yes, we need to examine ourselves and we need to do there's internal work 100%. But if we do that in isolation of being in relationship with other people and having their input into where we are and how we're showing up, there's a big gap, right? Our identity is very different than our reputation or how we show up. And it goes back to one of the things you were saying, which is how we think we're doing is very different than the actual behaviors we're often exhibiting.
Yeah and in some ways, I think as work environments have changed for many people that it's more difficult to get feedback, people are in electronically mediated meetings at Zoom, WebEx, whatever, you know, on Slack all the time, and how to get some feedback from a casual interaction that may never occur on Zoom, which I think is making the rise of coaching, you know, so critical.
Yes, I mean, I would agree with you, I think it is definitely, it's a lot harder, it's different, it's different to get the feedback on Zoom, it's different to be able to even be able to observe mindfully in this capacity versus in-person, it's a different experience.
Yeah and you really don't know, I mean, I use with one of my colleagues, Beverly Kaye just shortly, is that you wonder in Zoom meetings, how many people would just go through the motions, you know, let's hang up after it's all done, you know, really didn't wanna, so creating this kind of engagement and what do managers and leaders need to do, and how do employees need to, you know, get what they need as well.
Yeah, absolutely. I wanna go back to something that you said around integrity and trust. I wanna explore those a little bit, because I think that, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about integrity and about trust and about what we, one, the fact that integrity does change, just like, I think our identity changes over life as we learn and grow and learn more about ourselves, I think that is a big misconception, I think people often think like, it just, it's this one thing that always looks the same and here's the five things we do to maintain, build and maintain trust, and humans are much more complex than that in my experience. And I'm curious, you know, in all of the, because so much of your work and what you speak about and are interested in, is in this realm, which I love, I'm curious what insights you would have or what you, you know, how do you see integrity and trust, and how do you explain to people how things change and trust just I'm assuming, and big assumption that you're not like, yes, here's the five things that everyone can do to build trust and it works a hundred percent of the time across the board, right. If only life were that simple.
Yeah, if it were, I think there are a couple of pathways and one is again self-awareness and all that comes with that developing sense of self and use of agency or adentic behavior. What also creates a pathway is acknowledging individuals as people in not as elements of production, because it's, you know, most of us are busy spending more time at work than before in many ways and just like, all I need from you is this report, or can you just give me that Excel, just that email and, you know, rarely do we think about the person that's in front of us. And to do that, I think one of the best ways to do that is just to say, hello, it's our oldest and best technology, it's a great way to grow inclusion is to say hello. So there is a pathway there that helps to acknowledge individuals, I don't know what happened to you, you know, five minutes before we met, or I don't know what's gonna happen to you 10 minutes after we meet, but I do do know that I have this moment in time with you to which then I can be present and attentive and, you know, bring myself to the experience. So, you know, these at least these two paths around self-awareness and then secondly, around saying, hello, I think are ways that we gain trust and insight, and the most important thing is developing alignment, on purpose and mission, because to the extent that you and I wanna be on the same team or aspire to teamwork, or to be part of a group, having a common mission goes a long way, because there is many how's, you might do it a different way, might be better than me and hey, that's great, you know, but as long as we're on that same, you know, mission, that purpose too, it makes a huge difference. So those are at three ways that I think about it.
Yeah, so when you were saying the saying hello, that piece, I thought, oh that's really interesting because one of the reasons that I love doing the podcast is I get to be very present with people and basically say hello to them without disruption, very mindfully on purpose, we have that shared alignment, and I was like, oh that's so interesting because I think it's one of the, I know it's one of the reasons that that you know, whether I'm hosting a guest or being a guest on a podcast, it's so appealing to me because it is that very specific, you know, on the format of saying hello.
And having planned hundreds of interactive meetings around the world, and having met with executives concerned about how they'll message particular topics. It's a great way to start by just saying, well, why don't you say hello.
Yep, but I think it's so easy to skip over that really simple connection piece and jump into the tactical.
And so easy to skip over people isn't it?
Yeah.
So it, for me, it is this it's a slowing sequence. It's a way to, you know, if you were to have a mantra to acknowledge people at the heart of the enterprise, so your heart as a leader needs to be at that heart. Maybe it's your, you know, psychic break, oh, when I say hello, I opened the possibility here, I create an opportunity, I dig into somebody's crises right.
Yeah, yeah. So it's really interesting that psychic break idea, that it's like hitting pause.
Sure, right, I mean, most of us are so anxious to get our point across, because particularly in confronting a person who's got positional authority or some other kind of hold over us, that we haven't been able to let go or to acknowledge it can be really difficult to speak truth to power or confront power. So I think it's part of the self-reflection, it's important to know where you find authority and how do you find authority? Do you find authority in the person? Do you find a three in the moment? Do you find authority in the action? So important to understand how you come to terms with power as well.
For sure. So I'm-
Given how many power in differentials there are, they create inequity and, you know, a whole host of so many ills in the modern workplace.
Yes, yes and it's, you know, it's interesting you say that because I think we talk so much, we very generically, but talk a lot about those, or we've talking about those inequities and those inequalities for the past year and a half, especially more than ever, right, in very different ways around the world, I don't hear a lot of talk about the individual relationship to power or people really exploring their own part of it, there seems and I think it's all important, please don't get me wrong, I think that talking about the systems of power and where that comes from is important, but also recognizing our own contribution relationship to it, even in smaller capacities makes a big difference from a self-awareness perspective.
Yes, absolutely, right and your values, what drives those behaviors towards goals, what restraints those and how you piece those together so that, you know, I think many of the people, most of the people that I work with are, you know, have goal-directed behavior, I mean are goal directed people and it's figuring out their balances and vectors that get them to those points and also the reduction of certain, you know, restraining forces or things that hold them back.
So I'm curious about, I have so many things I wanna ask you. So I'm going to take this sort of high-level 'cause I'm really curious about this. So, you know, your book is, the subtitle of your book, is Working and Living Authentically, right, integrity by design. So I'm curious about how does one design integrity? How does one know when they are working or living authentically and not being inauthentic jerk? Let's say.
Well, again, you know, think about authenticity and its relationship to congruency and do your values line up with how you're living your mission? And are you directing the significance of your mission in a way that's true to your values? So that's what I think about is the significance of the mission that you have. It's so interesting that we often ask children, you know, what do you wanna be when you grow up? I mean, already defining people by work, you know, as opposed to, you know, who are the person, you know, who do you wanna be? Do you wanna be a loving, caring person? Do you wanna be a competitive, you know, warrior? And you know, so many choices and so much nobility in all of those choices, to think about. But I do think it's about our definition and you know, we've got to rewire this, what do you wanna be when you grow up? To a different story, gotta change this narrative because I think it's, and our ideals of perfection, you know, often cause us to struggle and to stay in regressive loops and not grow.
I agree with that and I used to, so this is a sidebar for a second, but I used to run a tutoring company, that was my first entrepreneurial world is I ran a tutoring company and I stopped very quickly asking kids, what do they wanna be when they grow up? I was working with high-performing kids, it was like kids that were excelling and trying to get into private schools, and you could see even on like 10 year olds, the amount of anxiety, it would cause some of those kids and the, you know, not trying to decide or say the right thing and I was like, I am not participant and this was 20 years ago, and I was like, I'm out, I'm not participating in this, and I haven't asked that question since, I'll ask what books they're reading, I'll ask what they're interested in, like other but I really think it's important that we change the narrative from a really young age, because there are kids who say, you know, or adults who say I'm gonna be a doctor and I wanna be a doctor because the career is a doctor and they have no idea what their values are, they have no ideal what is driving them to that, it's just that's the job that I am striving towards.
Yeah and today, I mean, if anything, that, again, we're learning from the pandemic, is that a lot of time, even when people are going back into their office towers now, they're finding that they're sitting in their office or their cube alone, still masked, you know, if they wanna get something from the canteen or from a dining event, you know, they're ordering ahead of time picking up, I mean, the interactions are usually masked. So it's interesting when we think about all of this.
Yeah, absolutely. So how does one, so I know a lot of adults when I ask it this way, I know a lot of adults full grown, successful, who, if you were to ask them what their mission was, they would be like, well, I don't know, I don't know what my mission is, how do I to live a full life to be happy? Right? Like a lot of people will say that, so how not that I think there's anything wrong with those answers, for the record, if that's what someone feels their mission is great. But how would you suggest, or how have you seen, be successful for people to think about their mission and without it being a stressful situation? 'Cause I think we put a lot of pressure on, it has to sound a certain way and then people panic.
Yeah, I think the easiest way, and the first step to all of this is to identify what you're worried about or what you're concerned about and if we can create this sort of bit, you know, if we can box up what some of your worries are, then we can, you know, begin to explore how satisfied are you with this, carrying around this set of worries, and is there a goal that we could set, that could one, you know, my teacher, one of my teachers when I studied Immunity to Change, Bob Keegan and Lisa Lahey, was Bob's belief that coaching was about the elimination of some suffering right? Hence the worries and the concerns and working through those, I believe a little bit differently, I believe it's about the pursuit of happiness and that's not just upside down thinking, but it is about making that box potentially bigger so that you can lead a full life because most people, you know, many of us, I mean, we use the behaviors that keep us, you know, at a certain level of success.
Comfortable there.
Yeah, right. So it is, you know, the growth, at least as I've observed learning development, much of it's not fun, it's often messy or complicated and all that. When people tell you learning is fun and maybe take it, choose another channel. So anyway, it's really thinking about, you know, what is the possibility of growth after young adulthood? And, you know, can you evolve yourself as Bob would say, is the evolving self right over time? So yes, I think it does require a certain level of presence and commitment and hope and discernment and all of those things, to step into your full self.
Do you believe, I'm gonna fully acknowledge, I have very specific beliefs around this and I'm gonna acknowledge that, but I'm curious, do you believe that people's, you know, values, mission, et cetera, evolve over time? Or are they static? Because as I'm sure you know, there is a school of coaching and a school of many not only coaching, that says like your core values remain the same, no matter what happens to you for the entirety of your life, your mission, vision, whatever, your purpose, is the same for your whole life, no matter what, blah, blah, and there's others who are like, actually they can evolve, it's not always gonna be that sometimes it's stage of life, and I'm curious where you fall, if you have an opinion on that, because as we all know, people will guilt and shame themselves depending on what side of that they fall into and where they find themselves in it.
Yeah, I'm a little Lewinian and by nature, a follower of Kurt Lewin, and as though a Lewinian, I mean, I believe that behavior is a function of the person plus the environment. So context is everything people do evolve, yes, behavior is a function of person environment, you know, I mean there is the, as you so accurately a state, I mean, there is the belief that, you know, barring environments that are utterly hostile to development, that we are the same person throughout life, and while there is genuine expression of that, and I think as Jung also, you know, becoming more of who we are, I mean, throughout life, it used to be articulated right in the midlife crisis, people would have to come to terms with who they are and who they aren't, people would have a midlife crisis, but we have to think about development, you know, in different ways I think today.
So I do not know, you know, you said you were, I feel like you said you were Lewinian.
Lewinian, L E W I N.
I clearly got that.
There was a psychologist named Kurt Lewin who really created, it was a social psychologist who created part of the human potential movement.
So I love this, one of the reasons that I love doing these interviews is I always learn something, and this to me is really interesting because anyone who has worked with me, who is listening to this knows, that I obsessively talk about context in a way that people are always like, someone tells me anything, I'm like, I'm gonna ask for a little bit more context in these, obsessively, and it sounds like this human is right up my alley with some of what his thinking is, and so I-
Yeah was, he's been dead for a while, but yeah, for sure.
His work would be right up my alley.
Yeah, right.
So I just I wanna say thank you, not that this is the point of this interview, but I love when I learn something, and I learned of someone new, you know, as part and parcel of this, because it's interesting for me and it's interesting for my listeners because you know, it's all about digging into your expertise and the things that you have pulled together to make you as successful and wise and knowledgeable as you are, so thank you for that.
There's even an equation for it, I don't know if you can see.
Yeah, yeah.
Behavior is a function of person plus the environment.
I love that, I love that. Thank you for sharing that, I think that's super cool. Listen, I think that between, you know, talking about authenticity and integrity and I think there's
Your self.
Oh, there's so much in this conversation already, and that was like the cherry, and I'm like, I feel like I've, I mean, thank you for sharing everything you shared, 'cause I really feel like we got into some big, big, I mean, these are big topics, Mike.
Well yes and delightful for me to meet with you and have an opportunity to share this time together with you Celine.
I appreciate that and so before I wrap up, I always ask this question. Is there anything that we didn't get into or that you wanna leave the listeners with or something that you wanna make sure that they remember at the end of this?
Sure, I would encourages memory to lead from your heart.
I love that, that might be the name of this podcast, I'm just gonna say that right now. Mike, I appreciate you, I appreciate the time you've taken to speak with me and to share so openly with my audience, it's really wonderful and I'm very grateful for your time today.
Just a delight for me, thank you, Celine.
Thanks for joining me today on the Leading Through Crisis podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a minute to rate and review us on your podcast app. If you're interested in learning more about any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca.