Your PATH to Authentic Leadership

A Coaching Model By Annabella Da Encarnacao, Leadership Coach, GERMANY

Authentic Leadership

“Leadership is acting” – This popular saying illustrates the commonly felt gap between who we are and who other people think we are.

Being a leader, and a good one is not easy. As a leader, you are supposed to have all the answers, but the truth is that you don’t, and more often than not you struggle with insecurities on a daily basis, like:

• How can I beat stress?
• How can I motivate and inspire my team?
• How can I communicate better?
• How can I become a powerful negotiator?
• How can I lead change within my organization?
• How can I manage and advance my career?
• How can I become the leader I want to be?

Those insecurities are often pushed aside to create a certain persona to fit the stereotype of a strong and confident leader.

But while this act might be effective in the short term, sooner or later your insecurities will come to light.

Through Authentic Leadership Coaching, we can discover, explore and overcome the barriers standing in our way.

Authentic Leadership means closing the gap between your perceived character and who you really are. It is about exploring your core values, principles, triggers, and how to gain confidence in and stay true to yourself.

By learning how to remain unique and authentic at work, you will become a more fearless, effective leader who inspires trust in their teams, creating a spirit of teamwork, and leading yourself and others with integrity and resolution.

PATH to Authentic Leadership Coaching Process

My solution-focused coaching process is based on 3 pillars :

1. Understand yourself
2. Leading yourself
3. Leading others

Throughout this process, we will use the basics of Positive Psychology and Neuroscience to identify and apply positive thinking mechanisms to progress toward finding the right balance and consistency to stay authentic throughout all aspects of life.

1. Understand Yourself

Develop your self-awareness through introspection & feedback, and discover your true values, principles, and strengths that will shape and guide your leadership identity.

This can be supported through :

• Life journey exploration, which events in your past built which strength and triggers.
• External tools such as VIA character strength.
• Qualitative feedback through a support network.

2. Leading Yourself

Tap into the positive energy discovered through “leading yourself” to drive your intrinsic motivation, sense of purpose, and inspiration.

• How do your true values, principles, and strengths now shape your leadership identity vision?
• What are your learnings about yourself?
• How can you build an accountability system to support you along the way?

3. Leading Others

Equipped with your set of strengths, values, principles, and vision, you can now apply new, different habits to tackle your leadership challenges.

• How differently can you act, react and respond in a way that you would feel positive about yourself and your leadership?
• How can your support team help you to stay accountable in your journey to Authentic Leadership?

Your PATH to Authentic Leadership Coaching Model

Our Coaching conversation will use the PATH model for its backbone :

Perception

• We will explore your perception of the challenge you are facing:
• What is your perceived current reality?
• What is your ideal reality?

Awareness

• We will develop your self-awareness during the event:
• What are the triggers that create the gap between current and desired reality?
• Which of your strengths and principles can support changing this situation?

Transform

We will explore different perspectives :

• How differently would you approach your situation by using this or this strength?
• How would you feel about this new perspective?

Habits

• We will define positive habits to implement to reach your desired state :
• Which new habit will you need to result in this outcome?
• Which new actions will you take to create this new habit?
• How would you & your support team hold you accountable?
• How will you celebrate the outcome when accomplished?

You will reach the end of the session with clarity of which actions you need to take and how to successfully accomplish them in order to form a new leadership habit that will feel positive, natural, and authentic to you, as well as a clear accountability system to follow-through on your promise.

References

Discover your True North, Bill George
Authentic Leadership, Dan Owolabi
Quiet Leadership, David Rock
Authentic Leadership, Harvard Business Review Press
Livewired, David Eagleman
VIA institute – viacharacter.org