Authenticity Everywhere! Even/Especially at Work
Long before it was fashionable, and certainly long before it was a buzzword, way back in the day in my graduate program we talked endlessly about authenticity.
It seems now that authenticity is having its moment in the sun. Which is great, because it is summertime, and that is a good season to shine.
Let’s look at what authenticity is, or at least make a beginning to understanding it. Authenticity is defined as representing one’s true nature or beliefs; being true to oneself, and one’s experience.
Today I want to talk about an important place for you to show up authentically. At work. Yes, authenticity is a way of being, which means meant to shine in all areas of our lives. Yet, the workplace can sometimes seem like a stretch. Why would one take the risk of showing up as who they are in the workplace, especially in more corporate environments?
The answer to that question is twofold. First, it makes the experience of being there so much better, in terms of sense of satisfaction, enjoyment, connectedness, and quality of contribution. A pretty great payoff for being authentic in the workplace, and for workplaces to support authenticity.
But wait, there’s more. Quite a bit more. Second, it’s important for your health. Scientifically measurable health benefits include lowered cortisol (stress hormone), better sleep, better nutrition, and overall improvement in one’s connections/relationships. There are more measurable health benefits, yet I feel like these are definitely enough to get us thinking.
It turns out concealing important things about who we are, at our core as individual human beings has real costs to our quality of health and experiences. Whether conforming to dressing in clothes, or in attitudes, when we behave in a manner of doing things in a way that places fitting in/not standing out over who we are, we pay the price.
This is becoming a pretty bleak “inspirational” post at this point, so let’s get to the upside. Now that we know the ability to show up authentically is such an important part of our health and our experiences, we can begin to see where we back off and why. Then, we can begin to challenge ourselves and our workplaces to (step-by-step) become environments where we shine our more true and brightest light.
It’s a journey. It has so many challenges. Yet, ultimately, better health, better experiences, and better products and services create a win for all.
We are talking about ending the zero-sum game. We are talking about brave and visionary leaders, whose entire lives have prepared them for this challenge. We are talking about leaders of giant companies getting handed the challenge, and realizing they have to be up for these changes, they need to be able to embrace authenticity.
As we care for promoting authenticity everywhere, we will nurture its children inclusion and diversity. What an even more amazing world we will create, when we appreciate all cultures, and share both our differences and same-ness-es. In these days of things that divide us, let’s look for ways to understand one another based on each of us showing up as the authentic person we are.
I’ll end my musings for today, and begin them for another post where we talk about workplace competition, with this quote:
“If you’re your authentic self, you have no competition.”
– Scott Stratten
far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. Separated they live in Bookmarksgrove right at the coast of the Semantics, a large language ocean. A small river named Duden flows by their place and supplies it with the necessary regelialia. It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth.
The Big Oxmox advised her not to do so, because there were thousands of bad Commas, wild Question Marks and devious Semikoli, but the Little Blind Text didn’t listen. She packed her seven versalia, put her initial into the belt and made herself on the way. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar.