Authentic Leadership

8 keys to leading people successfully

(without selling your soul)

Neil Crofts

This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 Introduction
Authentic leadership is the highest and Authentic leadership creates a
most powerful level of leadership yet virtuous spiral of growth and
understood.  development leading to confidence,
self-belief and success for individuals,
The worlds authentic leaders achieve teams and organisations.
remarkable things in business and
society. They are passionate, focussed, Authentic leadership goes beyond
committed articulate, controversial, other levels of leadership by seeking
socially conscious and inspirational. the win, win, win, win in all situations.
A win for the individual, a win for the
Authentic leadership is assumed rather team, a win for the organisation and a
than appointed, it is dynamic rather win for society as a whole.
than hierarchical.
Anyone who is willing to step up to
Authentic leadership requires a high their responsibility can be an authentic
level of self-knowledge and integrity. leader.
Authentic leaders empower people Are you ready to step up to your
around them to achieve their best responsibility?
through a coaching and facilitative style
of leadership. Are you ready to lead?
This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 1. Be Yourself
Many of us spend an enormous 2 - Your best experience of leadership?
amount of energy being who we think
other people want us to be. Authentic 3 - Your ‘hero’ leader
leadership requires that we know who
we are and be it without fear or
Answer each question by noting
compromise in all situations.
down 4 or 5 key words. Arrange the
words in order of priority for you.
To know ourselves we must be able to
articulate our core motivation and the Take the top 5-7 key attributes and
values we live by.
turn them into a sentence of around
20 words that also aligns with your
An authentic leader also needs to have core motivation and your values.
their own authentic leadership
philosophy. To articulate your own
This is your draft leadership
leadership philosophy think about: philosophy. Live with it, work with it,
test it and develop it until it feels easy
1 - The time when you have worked at for you.
your very best - how were you being
led?
This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 2. Empower
One of the challenges with hierarchy Why would I hire/work with someone
is that responsibility devolves upwards I do not trust?
so fast that, if you are a leader, it is
easy to become overwhelmed. This is not a question of trusting
everyone with everything. It is a
The authentic leader goes beyond question of understanding your
simple delegation to empower people people’s strengths and weaknesses and
to define, decide and act with the trusting them to do the things they
absolute minimum of intervention or are best at brilliantly.
management.
Create a safe environment where you
To empower means to give people can talk with people and discover
permission to use their own their true strengths and weaknesses.
judgement, their own taste, their own
creativity to solve problems, take Help people to build on their
decisions and so on. strengths and have others support
their weaknesses.
If you recoil at the idea of trusting
people, ask yourself this question: Tell them you trust them to do a great
job.
This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 3.Meaning
There are three ways to motivate People will only take responsibility and
people; carrot, stick and meaning. initiative if they personally believe in
what they are doing. If the outcome
Carrot and stick work well if you are of their labour is personally meaningful
looking for people to do what you are to them.
telling them to do and not go far
beyond. There are three levels of meaning:

If you want people to take initiative, to 1 - Service to human society

take responsibility, to be creative
neither carrot nor stick will work. 2 - Service to the environment

If you want people to take 3 - Service to spirituality

responsibility, you will only succeed if
you give them a sense of meaning or The more the outcome of our work
purpose. People will not take initiative contributes the more meaningful you
or responsibility if they feel they are and others will find it. If you want
simply working to make someone else people to be fully motivated offer
rich. them meaningful work.

This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 4. Alignment
It is all very well for everyone in a A successful team purpose must
workplace to have a sense of meaning, deliver for every individual, for the
but if that meaning pulls people in team as a whole, for the organisation
different directions its value is limited. and for our wider society.

Part of the job of leadership is to find A win, win, win, win.

a way for everyone in the team to
align what is personally meaningful for Sharing the team purpose is then a
them with the outcome of their work, clear criteria for inclusion in the team.
the work of the team and the work of Those who are unable to align with
the organisation as a whole. the team purpose would be happier
and more successful in a team or
This means enabling every member of organisation that does share their
the team to articulate their core purpose.
motivation or life’s purpose and then
helping them to work with other team Alignment is relevant for both
members to articulate a team purpose recruitment and retention of team
members.

This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 5. Safe Space
The most important role of the leader Instead all team members must be
is to maintain a safe space in which willing to take responsibility for both
their team members can work. the ups and the downs. They must
learn to celebrate the ups and and
To feel empowered we need to move on quickly from the downs.
believe that the goal posts will not
move, that we will not be blamed. The culture that is created is one of
shared responsibility and safety in
The job of the leader is to deal with which to experiment, explore, fail and
issues as they arise in positive, succeed.
supportive, learning and above all
honest and transparent ways - without The outcome will be break-throughs,
blame or criticism. creativity and brilliance.

The authentic leader must provide a

reliable guarantee that individual team
members will not get blamed for
mistakes or failures.

This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 6. Opportunity
As well as a sense of personal and with and for each individual and with
collective meaning we also need an and for the team.
honest sense of personal and team
opportunity. Once the opportunities have been
made clear, the role of the authentic
We need to believe that one of the leader is to coach and support each
outcome of our work will be progress individual team member so that they
and improvement for us personally. are able to make the most of the
opportunities on offer.
The conditions for team opportunities
need to be clear and transparent. This coaching can be done in any
When the conditions are met, the direction and can be explicit or
promised opportunity must be discrete. If you have a boss who needs
delivered promptly. coaching to facilitate the progress of
your team, it is the responsibility of
The role of the authentic leader is to the authentic leader to do that
help team members articulate the coaching. It is equally important to
opportunities available for each coach peers as well as those for
individual and for the team. whom you are formally responsible.
This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 7.Courage
Authentic leadership does not need to with to your values and leadership
be lonely, because everything can be philosophy. To stay calm and spread
co-created and responsibility can be calm and avoid panic.
shared.
The only way to convince people that
However, when times are tough, when you have that kind of courage is to be
things do not go according to plan, that calm, strong, authentic leader at
when others are criticising or blaming all times and especially in other and
you or your team or your team more minor situations.
members, real courage is required.
There will be times where it is Alongside this the authentic leader will
necessary to lead from the front. To maintain a high level of transparent,
stand firm or to be prepared to act on relevant and honest communication in
tough decisions. all situations - especially the tough
ones.
Your team need to know that when
these times arrive you can be relied The only way to be that authentic
upon to behave with integrity, to stick leader is to practice being that
authentic leader.
This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 8.Love
What in the world is a word like ‘love’ Think about it. The working
doing in a leadership book? relationships that work best, the
customer relationships that work
The reality is that love, is really the best, the personal relationships that
defining quality of the authentic leader. work best are all the ones that go
beyond the logical, obvious,
Love is the opposite of fear. transactional and into the undefinable,
caring, trusting space of love.
There are three different types of fear
- useful, limiting and someone else’s. Love is the only long term motivator.
Useful fear helps us respect risky In order to stay motivated and
situations, the other two hold us back. committed to anything over the long
The authentic leader will always act term we must love to do it and we
with love, even when the situation is must love the outcomes it creates.
frightening. Anything else is a compromise.
Relationships with love are the only Authentic leaders love their work,
ones that truly work. their people and the outcomes.

This e-book is written and offered by Neil Crofts - coach, consultant and author. For more information or to contact please visit www.authentictransformation.com Copyright © Neil Crofts 2008
 What’s Next?
This ebook has been written by
author, coach and consultant Neil
Crofts. It is offered for free as a way
of helping to enhance the level and
quality of leadership in the world -
please feel free to pass it on to others
or offer for download from your
website or blog.
If you find the ideas inspiring but are
not sure how to implement them you
may be interested in authentic
leadership mentoring with Neil.
If you would like help to bring the
benefits of authentic leadership to
your organisation you may be
interested in having Neil run a
workshop or training event.
Contact Neil - neil@authentictransformation.co.uk www.authentictransformation.co.uk
Neil has raced cars, started, run and
sold businesses. He has also been a
senior leader in a global corporation
through growth and contraction.
Neil has written two books on
authentic business and a third on
personal authenticity.
Neil has coached thousands of people
to realise their life’s purpose and has
worked to bring the benefits of
authenticity to some of the largest and
most inspiring organisations, including
- Microsoft, MSN, Shell, Gambro,
NPower, Howies, KaosPilots, Good
Energy, Solar Century, Alastair Sawday
Publishing, South Gloucestershire
Council, NHS.