Miranda is the Global Chief Client Officer for Teleperformance.
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Over the last year, countless articles have discussed the crisis of our disconnected workforce, with employees quitting their jobs in search of greener pastures at record speed. BetterUp’s 2021 "Insights Report" found that one-quarter of all employees do not feel like they belong at work and close to half of the employees feel less connected to their company than they did before the pandemic.
While many companies have offered innovative digital solutions to these problems, the most effective way to engage and connect with our employees in the era of remote work is not to schedule more Zoom happy hours or start a team-wide book club (although these are not without merit). Rather, it is an approach that takes no technology at all: authenticity.
In order to bridge the gaps exacerbated by the pandemic and form genuine, lasting connections with our employees, we have to bring our whole selves to work.
Don’t Shy Away From The Conversation
When we reach a position of executive leadership, we often think we need to shut off our true selves to gain our employees' respect and focus on the job at hand. However, this only creates a barrier between leadership and employees.
This behavior also feeds into the human tendency to look for differences instead of commonalities, something that often becomes even more pronounced at work. It is all too easy to look at those in leadership and fixate on just how different they are, assuming “I will never reach such a position,” or “My boss could never understand my day-to-day reality.”
Bringing our whole selves to the table is essential if we want to genuinely connect with our employees and inspire them to strive for significant goals. Now, I don’t begin every meeting by telling my personal story. However, I also don’t shy away from sharing the trials and tribulations I have faced to get to where I am now, especially when I think my story might help the person I’m talking to.
The people I work with know I have not walked a straight path to leadership—I’ve had to bear my fair share of challenges. By leading with truth, my employees trust that I am not looking down on them from a high hill. They can relate to both me and my work authentically. We all have a story, and I hope my story can qualify the stories of employees and inspire them to reach for what they may have previously thought impossible.
Form Authentic Relationships
In the age of social media, employees can easily recognize an inauthentic leader. We see them daily gracing our Instagram feeds, and we have become keenly attuned to blocking out anyone who feels phony.
By leading with authenticity, we enable ourselves to cut through the noise of social media fakes and build relationships from an honest and authentic place. Transparency and trust become the foundation on which our relationships are formed and we create bonds with our employees that go beyond the dotted lines they signed on their contracts. We move away from, “We’ll do what you say because you are our boss” and toward “We’ll do what you say because we are emotionally connected to you and believe in your vision.”
Additionally, employees are more likely to share their honest thoughts and feedback with leaders when they have formed a genuine connection with them and trust their thoughts will be heard with an open mind. If these relationships aren’t formed, leaders may miss out on key insights and avoidable problems because their employees do not feel safe enough to share the truth.
Furthermore, I don’t pretend to check my “real life” at the door just because I am the boss and, in doing so, I make it clear to my employees that I don’t expect them to either. Authenticity is a two-way street; by allowing both sides of the employer-employee relationship to bring their whole self to work, we create space for all parties to thrive.
Authenticity Maximizes Your Influence
Authenticity and relatability allow us to maximize our influence as leaders. Releasing ourselves from the burden of pretending to be someone else enables us to be truly present and engaged with our vision and the employees who are there to help us realize it.
Additionally, when leaders show up as their whole selves, they create a safe environment for their team to do so as well. Research conducted by BetterUp found that when employees behaved authentically at work, the company saw a 140% increase in employee engagement and a 54% decrease in turnover rates.
Live Your Truth Out Loud
As leaders, we were not hired to play a part or be a placeholder—part of our job is to bring our authentic selves to the table, including all of the twists and turns we have taken and idiosyncrasies we’ve picked up along the way. The very reason we were hired in the first place is likely because of, not in spite of, our unique path to success and the insights our journey has provided us.
Bringing our whole selves to work can be scary, but it is also one of the only ways we can genuinely connect with those we work with, avoid burnout and stay engaged with the work in front of us. As leaders, it is on us to show employees what it looks like to live our truth out loud—with the messy and the beautiful and the in-between. We can inspire them to do the same: to trust that their authentic self is enough and show up every day with the only self, and thus the best self, they have to offer.
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