Hi, everyone. I'm, I'm so thrilled to be here with you. Thanks so much for joining me. All right. Well, uh my name is Aaron Thomas. I am a career and leadership coach and I work with motivated professionals and I help them land jobs that they love.Um I also help them make more money and advance in their career. I also work with leaders in the workplace and I support them um with their leadership impact. Um folks who are really wanting to have a greater influence or have a greater impact or effectiveness with their leadership. One of my very favorite topics um when working with leadership clients is authentic leadership in my purview, authentic leadership. It's what's going to change the face of um the world in, in really positive ways. So I'm just, I'm thrilled um to be here with you all. So, um in the next 20 minutes, 19 minutes now, this is uh fast and furious. Um There's three learning questions that I want to pose to you all and I have some thoughts about it and I would love to hear from you all as well. So, number one, what is authentic leadership and why is it so critical now? And um for the future, um the second uh learning question, how to develop your authentic leadership. So how do you actually do this? How do you get, how do you, how do you become a more authentic leader?

And then of course, how do you build your, your agility to meet the needs of a, of an ever changing world? So that's what we're going to dive into today. And to start, I would love to um pose this uh reflection question to you all because I believe that we can learn the most from the people we watch. And so I want you to think about an amazing leader that you've either worked with or been in relationship to and think about who that person was and maybe it was at the very start of your career, maybe it's, it was um you know, wherever, you know, later in your career, wherever you're at.

But think about this person and think about what about them was so great. How did they make you feel? How did they move you to act? How did they, how did they behave? What was that one or two things that they did that um that you just really inspired you or um moved you and go ahead and chat in the chat box or share in the chat box. So we can see what, what folks are coming up with. I see Aaron said, Yeah, they believed in you and supported you. Yeah. Yeah. So they, they trust uh here in that like they trusted you. They, they, they lended their trust within you. Who else I had advocated for you? Yeah, they had your back. Nice. So challenged you. So Katie said they challenged and inspired you. Oh Mary. Yeah. Transparent and trustworthy. Yeah. And they, they made you feel like you brought value, they saw you, they, they, they created space for you to contribute and recognize that contribution. That's awesome. Yeah. And they provided ops to grow for, for Alisa transparent sponsorship, autonomy, supportive, gave great advice. Yeah, all, all really good stuff. Yeah. And, and what strikes me as a lot of the through line of, of what some of you are saying is this um it's, it's about honesty and transparency and lending trust, not only building credibility and trust within themselves, but also trusting you.

Um and actually being there for you having your back, supporting you, lifting you up, right? Rather than this old trope of leadership that is super outdated and doesn't work, which is let me just le let um lift myself up as the leader. So um so what is authentic leadership? Um So it's really, it's the healthy alignment between um your internal values and strengths and motivations with your external behaviors when leading yourself and others. So I'll just say that again because it's kind of a, it's, it's kind of a a mind bend, right? So it's just the alignment of what's happening inside for you. Who you are, your values, your motivations, your strengths and um consistently aligning your external behaviors with those when, when leading yourself and leading others. So another way I like to think about this is it's really leading from the inside out. It's starting with the, the you, right?

The who are you? What do you have to contribute? What, how do you view the world, what is most important to you and then leading from that place? And the reality is the future of work requires bold leaders to understand and accept themselves and lead from these strengths and values. So that real transformation is possible. Now, I totally get that this is a L may maybe, maybe sounds radical or sounds um different than the sort of traditional approach we've had, which is um which is that really leaders need to know everything and to have all the answers. Um But, but that just, that's just a false, that's just a false narrative for, for many lots of reasons that we'll get into. Oops. So more about authentic leadership. There's three sort of dimensions or perspectives that I like to think about. Um there's the intrapersonal, right?

So this is this is the leader herself, the this is what I was just talking about. This is the place um you come from when aligned with your values, with your strengths, with your motivations. With your lived experience, with your culture, with your aspirations and your vision.

This is the, this is the in intrapersonal. Then we have the interpersonal and this is really important. And this is the second perspective. This is the relationship between you, the leader and the quote unquote followers, the people you are leading. And these are the interactions you have the behaviors you um you espouse with, with those people. And then you have the third perspective, which is the developmental and this is the sort of that sweet spot right in the, in the center and this is the overlap of the intra and the inter um to really create the authentic leader. So, so essentially, bottom line, what this means is that um both are just as important. We have to know ourselves and uh and accept ourselves so that we can actually leverage the hell out of ourselves and amplify ourselves. And we have to understand our impact on others, right?

Our relationship with the people that we are serving or that we are leading. Um so behaviors of, of a leader. So this is sort of generic a little bit. Um And, and I find that it's, it's um it's, it's, it's widely um widely understood and this is backed by a lot of social science for many, many years, really trying to think about, well, what is it that makes a leader effective? And there's lots of different lenses you can put on this. And um I wanted to share this because this is kind of the the five key areas or five domains that um um Zenger and Folkman have described to be most important um for a leader. Now, within each one of these domains, there are lots of behaviors and lots of characteristics. But the number one thing that they have found um is that leadership starts with honesty and integrity and leaders build trust consistently. This is the aspect of authentic leadership.

This is the call to action to lead with authenticity because it builds trust. It's honest, it's integral. The other ones are important, of course, but they're not what we're focusing on right now. Um So I won't go through them. So why is this so important? Well, I just said it right? It builds trust and trust is the key to psychological safety and to building high impact teams. It is number number one, it's more effective. It's more it when, when you can actually bring yourself to the table and actually create space for others to bring themselves to the table. It's, you have more innovation, you have more perspectives, you have more thinking to pull on. It's more productive. It builds diverse and inclusive teams and companies and honestly, it just feels better and like we have to feel good at work that the majority of us workers are deeply dissatisfied in their careers. And we work about a third of our lives. We spend about a third of our lives at work. If, if we work full time, that's about 90,000 hours. So um feeling good at work in my purview is mission critical and this, this feels better when we can just be ourselves, right? It just feels better. It's more energizing and we are more resilient, this old trope, fake it till you make it. How how many of you um have heard this, this fake it till you make it fake it till you make it?

Or maybe the question is, is how many of you have heard this advice from other people in the field? Um May, may maybe no one. Well, I have certainly heard it a lot and I call bullshit on it. Um I, I really this trope um while I think the intention is, is, is good, the impact actually, I think is, is fairly detrimental. Um and I wanna change this sort of like fake it till you make it to um be yourself. Because the more you are yourself, the more able you're going to see what is the need in the environment and then manage for that. It's this clarity of thinking. So um fake it till you make it. No, no thanks. So Ursula Burns. Um she was the former CEO of Xerox and Veron and she was the first African American CEO for a Fortune 500. She is a Trailblazer and an icon and such an inspirational leader. And I love what she has said um about, um when that, that she realized, you know, she was more convincing to herself and to others when she actually said what she thought versus what she thought wanted versus what she thought people wanted to hear from her. So, um, that, that, that quote really guides me. So what else guides an authentic leader? Um There, there are many things, self-awareness. Number one, this voracious curiosity about um how we're showing up, uh how we're impacting others.

Um you know, who we are and what's most important to us. Genuineness and humility. This is really critical, you know, with this, it's about really um again, behaving in line with, with what you're thinking and what you're feeling, empathy and ethics, of course, um kind of a results, orientation, this ability to really um focus on where are we moving and, and, and why are we, why are we moving in that direction and then learning and growth?

So imagine a new leadership paradigm and, and this new leadership paradigm is that leaders look like you, they look like all of us that there's not just one identity of a leader, but that it actually looks like like all of us and that anyone can lead that leadership actually is a choice and an opportunity.

It's not a title and that leaders are human and imperfect and, and purpose driven. And that the primary role of a leader is to lift up their people and to build trust and that leaders constantly are asking for feedback and giving constructive feedback, positive and constructive feedback.

And that leader's view, lived experience as an asset, just like work experience. So can you imagine it? Can you imagine this sort of new leadership paradigm? I hope so because this is where we're going with authentic leadership. So how do you do this? How do you advance your authentic leadership? Number one, you build your brand and I know this might sound kind of weird because it sounds kind of marketing. Um but I don't mean it in a market with a marketing lens. I mean it with a understanding your leadership um stance with enough precision that you can not only internalize it and understand it and make sense out of it, but that you can articulate it to others. This is really important. Number two, self and social awareness so constantly be building self and social awareness. So working really to understand yourself and how others experience you. And then number three, taking action and building agility. So this is really around making choices often that always align back to your leadership brand and building agility so that you can surface blind spots and um skill deficiencies um and mindset traps. So um so you're not hiding behind your brand, but rather leveraging it. So how do we do this specifically? So building your brand? So um what I would encourage you to think about. And I'm gonna rush through this because we don't have too much time.

But when you're thinking about your leadership brand, your leadership stance, these are the things to think about your values or in other words, what's most important to you, your culture, your experience, your achievements, your strengths, your motivations and your vision. This is the, these are the building blocks for your leadership brand. Some prompts you can use again. What's most important to me? What am I best at? What do I need in an environment to be successful? And how do I aspire um to make people feel? What do I want to do? What is my mission? What's my vision? Number two, self and social awareness. So um this is where authentic leaders have to have a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. And a growth mindset comes from a place of opportunity that everything that everything holds an opportunity rather than fixed meaning. Uh There's nothing to be learned, it's fixed, it's either or it's either yes or no, it's black or white. So um building and developing a growth mindset is really critical here. Always ask yourself, does my impact align with my intent which can really surface some blind spots, ask people for feedback consistently and understand the front and the backside of your brand. And what I mean by that is your brand is composed of all of these amazing assets you have, right? Your values, your strengths, your motivations.

And when we over identify with, with, with our, with our strengths and with our values, we can sometimes, um um we can sometimes under resource uh other things because we're over identifying with these things. And so this is really, um this is really about agility. So, agility is really when you see, oh, this is what I'm really good at and I'm going to design my career and my leadership so that it's about 70%. Um um It's about 70% of the time that I can actually leverage these strengths and I can move in the way that I'm motivated to move. And then I need to build the capacities, the skills, the competencies for that 30% of the time that you have to adapt outside of, outside of yourself. So that's the sort of 7030 rule. And like I said, design your career around your brand. This is when work starts getting really fun and your leadership starts to really level up um and build an evaluation and reflection practice. This can really help with, with um our agility. OK? I know I rushed through that really fast. I hope you'll connect with me. Um If you're interested. Um My website is uh career upgrade coaching.com. Again, I'm a career and leadership coach. So I work with motivated professionals. I help them land jobs, they love, make more money and advance their career.

And I also work with leaders to help uh improve their, their leadership impact. Thank you so much for joining me. I really hope everyone is getting a tremendous amount from this amazing conference and hope, hope to connect with you.