I have a ton of weaknesses.
The thing is that I don’t want anyone to see those weaknesses so I try to hide them away and make sure that no one sees them. It’s the best way to make people think that your perfect, that you are the type of person that they can trust.
The thing about this is that it is stupid.
Everyone has weaknesses and no one is perfect, so when it comes to being a leader in any type of way, the best way to be the best leader you can, authenticity and all, is to be genuine and lead with your heart.
This is hard for me to do because, firstly, I am not someone who likes to be a sole leader and, secondly, I tend to try not to know my own emotions.
So here is a couple of ways that you can work on being a more authentic leader.
1. Write in a journal your strengths and limitations
I don’t like writing in a journal. It is something that I find tedious and when I try to write for more than two days I tend to put it off and wish that I would try harder for it.
Journal writing is a healthy thing to do. If you are having any type of problem you can figure it out by writing it down because writing makes you think a tiny bit more on what you are actually feeling.
Even though I hate writing in a journal, the times that I write in my journal are therapeutic and I am able to sort myself out better.
For example, I once wrote in my journal for a whole month before I gave up.
During this time I was at a theater camp and every day was physically exhausting and I started to feel inadequate about my abilities. I started to get really down with myself and I withdrew myself from my group.
As I did this, I would write in my journal about what I was feeling and realized that it was my own fault and that the more I withdrew myself the more I was telling myself that I wasn’t good enough to be around those people.
I went to one of my group members and told them how I was feeling. They immediately took me in their arms and told me that what I was thinking wasn’t true and told me how they were looking up to me because they were feeling inadequate compared to me.
It was because I took the time to write my feelings about my weaknesses that I was able to come to a solution and bring myself to a point where I was doing better, physically and emotionally.
Writing in a journal your strengths and limitations is something that every person should do whether you are a leader or not.
Once you know what those are, you can better play to those strengths and work on those limitations so you can become a better leader.
2. Always be yourself; Don’t hide your true self
To be a good leader, you can’t be a different person to your followers, then you are when you are by yourself.
We talked a little about this in my post called The Mask of Authenticity. When we become someone else when we are trying to promote one thing, we can’t become a better leader, especially an authentic one.
I had a time when I tried being someone else, just so a crowd would like me.
It was my first time in theater and I had no clue that the crowd I walked into was like a different species. I had come from a band like family and assumed that all groups acted the same.
I was wrong.
This theater group seemed very close. That first day, they all laid down on the floor and put each others heads on another person’s stomach.
I was astonished. Some of these people didn’t know the person they were laying on, but here they were being so comfortable with people they hardly knew.
I suddenly felt like I didn’t have the right type of personality to be hanging with this type of group. This feeling that I had, the one where I didn’t feel like I belonged, lasted until my last year of high school.
During that year, I started to realize that I was the exact personality that fit in with the group and when I gained that confidence, I suddenly felt apart of the group. I didn’t need to pretend to be weird, or act dramatic, I could just be myself and they would like me.
I only wish that I could realized that sooner. Maybe I would have made some great friends from that group.
Take it from me when it comes to being yourself. It is always better to be yourself. When you are, then people will sense that authenticity and they will want to be around you more often.
3. Realize that your weaknesses aren’t bad
Like I said at the beginning, everyone has weaknesses. However, you get to choose what you do with those weaknesses. If you take those weaknesses, work on them, gain advice from others on how you are doing, and keep on working at it, then you can make those weaknesses strengths.
One of my weaknesses that I have is writing about something I am not interested in. When this happens, I try to avoid the assignment as long as possible only to hurry to write it and get it in on time.
It’s something that I always have had, but a couple of years ago it was worse.
A couple of years ago, if I had an assignment that I had to work on that I wasn’t interested in, I just wouldn’t do it. The only way that I would is if my parents would force me to. When I left high school, I found myself in a tricky situation.
No one was forcing me to do those assignments.
After I realized that I got myself to work figuring out ways that I could combat this. Years later, I still have a hard time writing about something I don’t want to write about, but I have gotten myself to a point where I can do the assignment. I procrastinate it, but I still get it done.
And even though I have a while until I get this weakness into one of my strengths, I will still keep on working through it so I can be better.
The same goes for someone who is a leader.
Just because you have a weakness doesn’t mean that you have to hide it, or be ashamed that you have it in the first place.
Weakness doesn’t always mean that you are vulnerable.
It just means that you have to work hard to make that weakness into a strength so you can be not only a better person, but a better leader.
4. Realize that improvement is an ongoing process
I always laugh at titles that say, “loose 10 pounds in 24 hours,” or “make one million dollars in ten years”. The truth is is that anything that is good takes hard work.
When I first started writing, I made so many mistakes that I cringe now about it. Some of it was good, but it’s not as good as what I can do now. And what I can do now, won’t be as good as it will be in another five years.
It’s because improvement is an ongoing process.
Being a better leader won’t come after reading this post. You have to take this advice and work on it. It may take forever, but one day you’ll look back at who you once were and see how much you have grown.
It’s almost like a metaphor that I have heard people say.
When you are first doing a puzzle, you don’t really know what the picture is going to look like. You are just starting out. There is no way that you could possible know what the finished piece is going to look like.
But when you are finished, you will look back at the completed picture and know exactly where you had come from.
The same thing goes for being an authentic leader. You are not going to know where you are going to end up, but have a good heart and try your best to be the best you can and when you get to the end, you will look back and just see how far you have come.
Thanks so much for reading. I have enjoyed this topic so much, but am excited to move on to my next one. If you liked this post, hit the like button and go read my introduction to authenticity. The links in this post is for more information on the topic. Thanks to my post inspiration, linked in the post, I really enjoyed expanding more on what an authentic leader looks like. See you next time!