Paul, I'm excited to be here today. Um Before I start just a quick trivia about this picture that I have at split, we are big on growing together as a team and this teamwork has been something that I value a lot.And when I saw this picture, it just had to be there on my slide deck. Uh As Margot already introduced me, I'm the director uh of engineering at split uh outside of work, other than the classical dancing, I also enjoy to travel with my family, go hiking and sometimes just hold a book with a hot cup of coffee. So that's about me and I'm here today to talk to you all about authentic leadership. Uh authentic leadership came into prominence when Bill George talked about it in his book by the same name a few years ago. Here's the definition of authentic, what authentic leaders are by Bill charge. But what does this really mean in practice? And what are those behaviors that authentic leaders display that we can inculcate before I get into that? Uh Let's just pause. Uh I would love to hear from some of you about people, your educators, leaders role models, mentors, who've had a profound impact on how you think or how you work.

Can you send in the comment section about a few words that these people uh could, that you could identify these people with? And while you send those comments, I'm going to share what I have in my mind. So here are some words that comes to my mind when I think about those people who've had an influence on how I work. Trust, transparency, vulnerability, vision relationships. Now let's see how all of these words connect to authenticity. Authenticity is about self-awareness. One of the things that I observed with many of the leaders that I worked with was how in control they were about whatever situation they were in. They knew exactly what to speak, when to speak and how to speak. They knew when to be vulnerable, when to be inspirational and when to even be angry when I had a conversation with one such leader about how they did it. The answer was practice, wait practice really isn't authenticity about being your true self then where did practice come from?

Well, authenticity is about being true, bring your true self. However, it is also knowing about what that true self is. And this is where self-awareness comes into picture. Being self-aware means that at any given point of time, you know exactly how you're feeling, what you're thinking or what your belief is, what self-awareness does is it helps you build the muscle for self management, which is how would you react to a situation. What differentiates authentic leaders is that they do not let their emotions drive the decisions instead, they actually take control of what action has to be taken at any given point of time. App tenacity is also about building relationships. People value real connections. Authentic leaders are able to share information about themselves and communicate regularly. Vulnerability plays a role in building relationships to people relate to vulnerability. Active listening is a key factor in building relationships. Remember, listening is not hearing, listening is understanding.

Listening is about not only being tuned in to what somebody is talking, it is also about being tuned into what somebody is not talking what somebody is expressed, uh what emotions are behind what's being expressed or what's not being expressed as Stephen Covey tells in his book, The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective people seek to understand before being understood.

Values are another key aspect for authenticity. What are values, values are essentially what help organization and individuals define how they operate. Values are core to our motivation and fears. We hold them dearly and they trigger emotions in us. Do you remember those times when you felt exhilarated when you took ownership of something and delivered? Do you remember those times when you were a little disturbed because you had to do something that did not resonate with you? All of all of us have been there? So what authentic leaders do is essentially they align their decision making to their values. There are some values that can be negotiated and some values that cannot be. And I'll talk a little about it later. When organization alignment is required, then it is important that people have a set of goals that they are essentially striving to achieve. There has to be a sense of purpose, purpose equals passion. Authentic leaders are passionate about the work they do and they care about their people.

They are very clear about what excites them about the work they're doing and very clear about also why they are doing that work, that clarity and consistency drives alignment and motivation. The most important part of authenticity is trust. How many of you here keep going back to the same restaurant again and again for dinner? I definitely do. I also end up buying clothes or shoes or electronics of a similar brand. Many researchers in the recent times have shown that customers go back to the businesses. They trust. It's pretty simple and straightforward, isn't it? After all, trust is core to many actions that we do. Then why are employees different employees when they trust their organizations and organizational leaders are a lot more engaged. Building trust is not easy. It requires time and effort, building trust requires transparency, transparency in terms of delivering message, not only when it is good news, but also when somebody has to be informed of the uncomfortable truths. Authentic leaders also encourage people to taking risks. Some of the projects that I have successfully led have been the ones where my leaders enabled me to take those risks. I knew that if I failed or I made any mistake, then they had my back to me. It also brings in a psychological safety where you feel comfortable about speaking up, even if your opinion or your thought is completely different from the leader. So these are some of the behaviors that I have seen in my leaders and things that I try to practice myself.

Let's look into why authenticity is important in today's dynamic. Organizations. Change is pretty constant as paradoxical as consistency and change are, they don't have to be at odds with each other. In fact, consistency and change, balance each other when leaders have to navigate their organizations through these constant changes, bringing a consistency of goal and a sense of purpose enables them to navigate these changes without overwhelming their team members and without overwhelming themselves too. The next aspect is engagement.

We talked about engagement and trust a little earlier gone are those days when leaders used to lead from a distance or what some people may call as airbrushed leadership. These days, people expect their leaders to be able to roll up their sleeves and be in the trenches with them and be able to relate and make real connections with them. Leaders have to be consistent, transparent and be able to walk the talk and this improves engagement. We talked about alignment through sense of purpose. When teams are aligned, when they know what goals they have to reach and they have a plan, it is pretty easy for them to be self motivated to deliver. This requires a lot of collaboration. Think about the rowing together. Example that I talked to you about split. This is how high performing teams function through collaboration last but not the least. Uh authentic leaders promote diverse perspectives. And as I said, they enable you to take risks and when you take risks come diverse ideas and when diverse ideas are there comes innovation. So I think all of us agree that authentic authenticity is something that is needed in organizations. But many people think about authenticity as a binary option. It is there or it is not there while fake it till you make it will not work. People will see right through it right away.

Take it as I am does not work either authenticity like everything else in life is not black or white, there is a big gray area. Let's explore some of these. I'll start off with a personal example. Um So ownership and accountability is a value that is close to my heart. And when I was an engineer, the way it manifested is I took pride in taking ownership of programming tasks and delivering it on time. As I transitioned to the role of a manager. People told me be yourself, you'll do just fine. So I was being myself, I continued to assign some critical programming tasks very confident that I'll be able to deliver it. However, management came with a lot of other additional tasks. I was now accountable for my team and not just my tasks. And very soon I fell behind on this, stressed me out. My manager called me in and asked me, Trish. I know that you're going to deliver this if given time. But is this what you want to do or is this something else more impactful that you would like to do? It was time for me to pause and self reflect what accountability had meant to me all this time was not going to be the same. It was time to recalibrate the definition of the value that I held dear to me, which was accountability.

Similarly, um one of the things that we, one of the questions that always comes up when we talk about authenticity is sharing of personal experiences of personal story, what can be shared and what cannot be shared and how much of it can be shared? Ask these questions when you are at those crossroads. Why are you sharing this story? Is it to build collaboration? Is it to move the work forward? Is it to build motivation? Keep it relevant to this task? Deep personal stories do not help in building it do not help in building relationships, especially, it depends on who that person is in front of you. It does help in strengthening the relationship though it does not belong, build friendships, but it helps, it basically does not create friendships, but it helps building friendships along the way. Knowing your audience is an extension to keeping it relevant. Um I'll talk about this in the context of vulnerability. Let's take a hypothetical situation. Uh You are asked to lead a new product line with a team of several new team members who do not know you, you're excited about this opportunity, but also it's uncharted water. So you're nervous, you are at your vulnerable self. You want to share this somewhere. Who do you share with? Is that going to be your team?

No, this team remember does not know you, they are actually looking up to you to uh to s see what you define success for them. And by sharing this vulnerability, you're probably creating uncertainty. Can you share this vulnerability though? Yes, of course, figure out who that audience is a mentor could be perfect for this. You can share this with your friends. You can share this with coworkers who know you pretty well or try to build a network where you can talk to people who are experienced in this area to see how you can define the success for yourself. Well, uh while leaders are expected to walk their talk, it's also important for them to build a common ground uh with the people that they work with. And this is where organizational dynamics become important, uh especially if you're new at a company and are trying to figure out what are the organized, how the organization works. Uh Great leaders have this unique aspect where they are able to have personal traits which are different, depending on the situation and depending on the person, don't get me wrong here. They're still being true to themselves.

But it is just that they are being flexible to adapt to what they, what situation they are in, in order to seek opportunities last but not the least globalization has had a positive impact. It has increased the spectrum of diversity. Today, many of us come from different cultural backgrounds and it is important to be sensitive to these cultural norms when you work with people a quick example um at split, when I interview candidates in the US, personal questions is a strict not things like, you know, where were you born or where do you live?

But I have a team in Argentina and in Argentina, this is perfectly normal. In fact, candidates appreciate this question because this is a way to make that connection. So it is important for leaders to realize and understand what cultural norms apply to the people they work with these.

Uh uh This is definitely not a comprehensive list of what pitfalls to watch out for but is a good starting point. Um having seen this, let's see how to build authenticity and how to build an authentic leadership style. Start with your life journey. Who are those people in your lives who have had an impact on you? For me, it has been my grandmother's very early on. She taught me what mental strength and resilience is as we go through our lives, there are several events that shape who we are change our perspective, make an impact on how we operate. It is important to introspect on all of these and see how this is how this is actually affected what we are, who we are. And then try to figure out, you know, how you can apply some of those things into your own leadership style. While we talk about self reflection, it is also important to know about what are your motivations, extrinsic which are driven by outcome. For example, when I went to do people leadership, the extrinsic motivation was growth and intrinsic, which is essentially driven by self satisfaction.

The same thing for me, the intrinsic motivation was getting an opportunity to work closely with people and make an impact on their careers. It is important to set goals, uh especially learning goals because they help in improving and improvement should always be there. It should never stop.

We also play several low roles in our life every day. I'm a mom, I'm a wife. I'm a leader to my team. I'm a coworker to my colleagues and I'm a team member to my manager. Each of these roles demand a different personality trait from me. But does that mean I have to wear a different mask for each of these? No, it is important to understand how different your life is or your personal life is from your work life versus the each of the different roles that you play every day and then figure out how to bridge that gap last but not the least. It's important to define your values. What are your deeply held values? What's negotiable and what's non negotiable? For example, as I talk to you, accountability was a negotiable value for me in terms of how I define accountability as the rules change in my life, I do have nonnegotiable values like for example, putting my family as a priority over work, that's something that I will never negotiate with life experiences in influence, influence our values.

So it is important to understand how that has evolved. And also it is important to be very cognizant of how values are actually influencing our actions. And then of course, building self-awareness, we talked about introspection, self in introspection is important, also get feedback from your team members and compare these two. How different are there? The more self you aware you are? The difference is going to be little. It's important to build a personal board of directors. These are people with whom you can be the most vulnerable self um it can start with your family, it can start with friends, it can start with coworkers. But you do need people who can be brutally honest in giving you that feedback and take a lot of different diverse perspectives and a little exercise to do to build your self management muscle. When you feel emotionally, very strong, think, understand why you're feeling that take a pause and then act and while you take a pause, think about the consequence, think about what perception it is creating. Think about whether you are actually being your authentic self, they're defined by several aspects including in our life, including but not limited to things like race, gender, sexual orientation, upbringing, social class, et cetera. Our identity is defined as an intersectionality of all these aspects.

We are not a single dimensional personalities. So it is also important that while this contributes to our own authenticity, the people around us come with similar identities. So it is important to recognize this intersectionality in order to remove bias from decision making process. How do you do this?

It's important to increase the diversity in your input so that it is not homogeneous. It is important to listen and learn from all perspective. Authenticity has multiple dimensions to it. And it is also a continuous learning process. I will leave you with a quote from Doctor Brine Brown about what authenticity is. And I would like to thank split as well as women in order to give you for giving me an opportunity to talk about this today. Thank you.