Leading With Authenticity - Showing Up As You Are

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Monday. How are you doing today? What's going on? What's new? I've got my trusted supervisor right here with me. He also says, good morning. My name is Jean Mitchells. If we haven't met before, it's great to be here with you. Good morning. Happy Monday. So with a lot of hello, update. Hello, everybody. So with all of my Cadre conversations, I like to invite everybody to just do a quick check in, type in the chat, or take a deep breath and let me know how you feel right now.

How do you feel right now in this moment? So I feel groggy today. It sounds silly, but Mondays are my day that I get to sleep in a little bit, and it's rainy here in Minneapolis. Good morning, Amar. And so. Good morning, Jules. And so I feel a little groggy today. But overall, I feel feel excited for Monday. I have a day today where I don't have any meetings. I have a sound bath tonight. So all the things that I haven't been able to get caught up on, I get to catch up on today. And I'm just grateful for the time.

Right. We don't know if I get a lot of time, so I'll give you a fun little share before I dive in today. So I literally sit in this chair, one particular chair often, and I read or if I am trying to do some work. And if you've been with me before, you know, I have a golden retriever, and he loves to be close by. So often when I sit in this particular chair, he wants to sit in the chair also. So here's what happens. I sit on the armrest, and he gets to lounge. So that's our program for this morning.

Major is supervising. He says hello. So this morning, leading with authenticity and showing up as you are. Let me ask you a question. Feel free to type in the chat, but if you're driving, don't type. Please be safe. When you hear the phrase show up as you are, how does it make you feel and do you feel? Second question. If you want that, you can show up to work as you are. Now, caveat to that, I don't think unless you're working from home, you can actually show up in your pajamas. So that's slightly different.

But what I mean is showing up and being who you are as a person. So I, for a long time, as many of you, right. I, you know, you think about going into your first jobs, Jules, I like that it depends on your mood or you think about starting a new job. And you look into that space of, gosh, I have a new set of people, I have a new chance. I have a new opportunity here. Or maybe you're going to a networking event or a benefit or some gathering of sorts where predominantly the people that you are showing up with are people that you could work with.

This is. I'm being very specific in that particular setting, and then we can expand it from there. But people have often told me, well, I do this at home and I do this at work, or I would never show up to work and, you know, wear this one shirt, or I would never show up at work and be this big, charismatic personality, because that's what they. They don't expect that from me. And my challenge when I'm coaching people is always, why. Now, there are many parameters on why we might not show up exactly as we are.

And I will caveat that to say, you know, in the places where you feel safe, in the places where you feel like you are holding something back for that promotion, now, again, there are a lot of reasons why you might hold some parts of you back, and I fully acknowledge and recognize all of that. I, even while I do this conversation, will also hold some parts back as well, just because it's the right thing to do in that space. Right? But what I mean when I say leading with authenticity and showing up as you are is coming back into a place of strengths and recognizing that your strengths are going to be different than anybody else's, which is why we get hired, right?

It's why people want to be around you. It's why they think that you will be successful in whatever that opportunity is it's being presented to you. Now, sometimes people might see a spark in an interview, or maybe they don't see the spark that they thought they would see. There's always different questions, always different sides of the coin, always different perspectives. But what I've discovered is when I show up as my authentic self into spaces one, people get to see more of who I am. And that's sometimes scary and sometimes beautiful, Right?

But also, I get to have the freedom to choose how much I get to be seen. That's going to be my choice. It's not predicated by what an expectation is. It's set in stone based on what I want to offer in that day, in that moment, in that space. So I wear many hats, and I don't often tell people all the hats that I wear, because for some people, it can be really intimidating, super overwhelming, and they just don't know what to do with me, and that's okay. So I've decided more recently to just be more brave.

And when people ask, like, what do you do? I share depending on how I meet them. Good morning, Nikki. So if I'm meeting somebody for the first time and I'm meeting them as a consultant, my corporate consultant hat, the things that I'll share with them. I'm a coach, I'm a communication specialist, I am an operations guru, and I have a finance and technology background with an innovation design thinking masters. That already sounds like a lot. And I could still go on from there. Now, if I'm in a different setting, I'll let them know that I'm a Reiki master, an energy worker, and a sound bath therapist, and I do breath work and I coach people one on one.

In another setting, I'll tell people I'm a spin instructor and I co own an indoor cycling studio and lead a team of people. That's a lot of hats, right? But when I tell people who I am, I am a person who wants to create positive change and make a positive impact and help people take the steps forward where they can feel bold and courageous and authentically themselves. So every hat that I just shared with you is all founded from that one sentence that I told you. So when I'm showing up authentically, that might mean I'm wearing a baseball hat.

It might mean I'm wearing a lot of athletic gear, because I have a lot of athletic gear, because I work out a lot, because I teach spin classes also. And I'm gonna show up in all of those spaces just as myself. And here's who I am. I'm funny. I think I'm funny. I might not be funny, and y' all can determine that, but I'm not gonna go on the road for being a comedian. I'm not that funny. But I'm funny and I'm silly and I like to create connections. So I will connect ideas. I'll connect people. So when I'm showing up at my best self, at my most authentic self, I don't really care what I'm wearing.

I care about the impact that I make and the impression I leave when I walk away. And that's me showing up as my authentic self. So what supports you showing up as your authentic self? What needs to happen in an environment for you to feel safe to show up as yourself at work or at an event? I'm just going to put it into a couple of categories because otherwise the conversation could be really, really broad. So Feel free. Type in the chat what you need to feel as if you can show up as your authentic self.

And it could be something about a leader, it could be something about the space, anything. Feel free to type it on in here. So I'm going to share a little story with you. A long time ago and I still do this, but I am a public speaker. So I started many years ago when I worked in corporate finance doing a lot of public speaking. I love public speaking. It sounds crazy, but I do leadership. Ooh, that's great. So I. But I had this fear because at the time I worked in corporate finance, I was getting asked to go talk about a technology and redesigning processes and getting leaders, senior leaders, to rethink how we did some of our work using this technology.

And people invested in me. I am so grateful. People invested in me to take trainings on public speaking, speaking, media training, mentoring me to adjust my presentation so that they would be more impactful. And a lot of people, they stepped in for me. So it wasn't a team of one me, it was a team of many that helped me to stand up into those spaces. And I loved it. My largest audience was 2,000 people to date. So exciting and fearful for many people, too. So here's the thing. When I first started, I went out and I bought a suit.

It was green. I loved it. I love the color at least. And then I bought a blue suit. Two suits. Suits are pricey also, who wears a suit today? I wore those suits when I would go to those experiences. And then one day I found at, like, Limited, they sold some suits. And I was like, okay, this is more comfortable. I'll get one of these. And I wore these suits. I went up on stage, and here's the deal. Every time I went up on stage, I was so uncomfortable. But I wasn't uncomfortable because of what I was presenting.

I wasn't uncomfortable because I was talking in front of a large audience. I was uncomfortable because I was wearing a suit. And I am awkward. I am awkward. I am not great in heels. I'm great in Nikes. I am not great in polyester. It doesn't feel comfortable to me. And if I don't feel comfortable in my clothes, then I don't feel comfortable doing the thing I need to do. And so I was trying to be the person I thought everybody needed me to be. And my presentations were fine. They were good. I got asked to come back, so they might not have been too bad.

But then I was talking to somebody at one of these Conferences, who I thought was incredible. This female leader was incredible on stage and dynamic, and I wanted to be like her. And here's what I saw. She wore a random shirt that had a lot of color, a sweater, and these really fun flared pants. And I was like, how does she get to do that? And I'm in this suit. So this little tiny version of myself, who had yet to discover who she really wanted to be, went up to this person and asked questions. And she was like, call me.

She gave me her number and her email, and we set up time. And she coached me to become my authentic self when I'm up there, because the more comfortable I am in what I wear, the better I can present, because I'm finally being myself. And at the next conference that had a few hundred CEOs and leaders, I was really nervous about the audience because I was just a financial analyst, senior financial analyst, presenting to all these really big people in their titles, in their jobs. But I wore with something that would look nice, but I was really comfortable in.

And I got so many conversations and so many positive feedback after that presentation because I finally felt comfortable leading in a way that was authentic to me. So I love this. Jules, you need leadership, acknowledgement, understanding. An intern gives time and energy while he is learning. We're full of gratefulness. So all of the things, right? So we need all of these spaces. We need all of these people. But here's the one thing I'm going to leave with you out of this story I just shared with you.

I was showing up exactly the way I thought I should show up for everybody else. But it wasn't until I had the courage to ask somebody who is showing up as themselves how they did that, that I truly had the permission and the parameters I needed to step in and shine and lead my way. So my invitation to you is, as we're thinking about all the things that we need to show up as our authentic selves and work. And maybe we're showing up the way we think people need us to show up. We think they need us to show up.

Have we considered what we need to show up as our best selves? And have we asked the questions, is it okay to show up that way? Have we asked the questions about what we need? Have we asked the leaders, hey, I think we have a miss here, because I feel like I'm working really, really hard. But one of the things that is my love language at work is acknowledgement, recognition, and I really am not getting any of that. So I don't Know if I'm working. Okay, so asking for what we need, when we say we need leadership, that's a really big question.

What exactly is it that you're looking for? And have you asked, are you looking for a mentor? Are you looking for someone to set the vision, to set the strategy, to check in with you? Because here's the deal. Most managers are great leaders. Most managers are managers. A manager's job, by definition is to performance manage people, to make sure the work gets done, to be responsible, to check in on the tasks, to help guide you to get the work done and to, you know, set the bumpers. A great leader is someone that can inspire you, someone that can mentor you, coach you, move.

You move mountains, and you want to move mountains with them. So my invitation to you is write down, what does it mean to be a great leader for you? What do you need? Because if strength finders, as this personality inventory tells me there's a 1 in 33 million chance I and anyone else has the same strengths, then that probably tells me that I need something different in a leader than the person sitting next to me in the cube next to me. So what do you need? And ask. Ask the questions. Because your opportunity to lead and show up exactly as you are is waiting for you.

It's available to you. If you want my help, ask. I got you. I'll have the conversation all day, any day. So will Nikki, so will jc, so will Luke. So who do you resonate with and who do you want to ask? Ask. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope you have the best day. I'm so happy it's raining because I feel like I just get to snuggle in today and do the things I need to get done. So take a breath, take a walk, and remember that we love you and we're here for you.