Better Make It Real
by Jill J. Morin
Today, it’s my mantra. As a CEO, I am passionate about organizational authenticity — how companies live out their promises to stakeholders — and I have a message for executives and entrepreneurs rebooting their businesses on the heels of the Great Recession: Better make it real. Here are nine truths of designing authentic, intentional, and wholly integrated experiences for stakeholders.

Authenticity and Leadership
by Daniel D. Elash, Ph.D.
To create or sustain a healthy, adaptive organization a leader must be respected; be seen as authentic, reliable, and trustworthy. While the following list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, an authentic leader must engage in several activities if he or she is to be believed and followed.

Why It Can Be Hard to Be Authentic
by Mike Robbins
Why is it hard to be authentic?  More important, why is it hard for you to be authentic? This isn’t an accusation or a judgment, it’s an important question.  If we can ask and answer this question honestly, without judging ourselves, we’re well on our way to becoming more of who we really are and ultimately more authentic.

How to Enhance Relationships, Increase Fulfillment and Empower Yourself by Being Authentic
by Mike Robbins
We live in a culture that is starving for authenticity.  We want our leaders, our co-workers, our family members, our friends, and everyone else we interact with to tell us the truth and to be themselves.  Most important, we want to have the personal freedom and confidence to say, do, and be who we really are, without worrying so much about how we appear to others and what they might think or say about us.

Transform Your Fear
by Mike Robbins
The question isn’t whether or not we experience fear in our lives (because we all do and always will for as long as we live); the more important question for each of us to ask and answer is, how can I move through my fears in an honest way so they don’t stop me from being who I really am and going for what I truly want in life?

Authentic Leadership: Reducing the Gap Between Lived and Espoused Values
by Daniel D. Elash, Ph.D.
In highly effective companies there is a commitment to aligning stated beliefs with actual choices. In this article we'll diagnose problems in the traditional planning process and recommend a positive approach that leaders can take to reduce the gap.

Be What You Desire
by Jamie S. Walters
Like many people in Western Culture, I was trained to look outside of myself for the things I wanted to experience or feel in my life. Ultimately, I've learned that this 'outside in' approach is a perpetually losing proposition. The real metamorphosis, the real change, comes not from trying to manipulate or change what's around us so that it conforms to our desires. It comes from ceasing the resistance, allowing what is, and then going within, and transforming or transmuting what's within us.

Believing with Abandon
by Katrina M. Mayer, Ph.D.
As adults we sometimes need a child to remind us of the obvious. Children are so much closer to the essential truth. They come from a place of innocence and their world is beautiful - fairy tales do happen and life is good.

Leadership and Authenticity
by Jeff Yergler
Why leaders seek it, why so few experience it, why fewer still can sustain it, and why organizations suffer from lack of it.

Values and Negotiations
by Byron Kalies
How often do you see people saying one thing and acting totally differently? The only way to keep values real is to live them.

The Passion-Emotion Continuum
by Sloan Campbell
Managers and executives in all organizations need to be able to better identify and help develop the Passion-Emotion Continuum instead of stifling its implications - after all, utilizing the continuum is very likely how they got to be where they are today.

Being Real, Being Human: The First Step in Becoming a Conscious Leader
by John Renesch
We all have ways of covering up our pain, anesthetizing ourselves from hurts or discomforts we endure in our lives. Being real will bring you closer to being a conscious leader, having more rewarding relationships and living a fulfilled life.

Authentic Leadership: Reducing the Gap Between Lived and Espoused Values
by Daniel D. Elash, Ph.D.
In highly effective companies there is a commitment to aligning stated beliefs with actual choices. In this article we'll diagnose problems in the traditional planning process and recommend a positive approach that leaders can take to reduce the gap.

Lessons In Authentic Leadership: Embracing Reality
by Daniel D. Elash, Ph.D.
One crucial character trait that has received scant attention has been the willingness and the ability of the person in a leadership role to embrace reality. The message is clear - embrace reality; anything else starts the journey to failure.

Exciting Disarray - Problem or Pathway to Potential?
by Jamie S. Walters
Exciting disarray – only a phrase that could be used by a visionary, and certainly a concept that would push one to explore the depths of potential, both his own and with regards to his organization.

What Does it Take to be a Truly Visionary Leader?
by Jamie S. Walters
The true visionary walks the fine and often challenging line between the inspired world – intuition, reflection, the Divine-inspired – and the material world of action, effects, systems, powerful special interests, ego, status quo, and tangible results.

Courage: Tap Greater Potential and Thrive Through Challenges
from Ivy Sea Online
Enough with the waiting for someone else to make a move or hoping that the tide will change on its own. Now is the time for courageous leadership and conscious action.

Lessons in Authentic Leadership
by Daniel D. Elash, Ph.D. and James R. Long, Ph.D.
Leadership, going forward, is not as much about telling as it is about hearing; not as much about knowing as it is about facilitating dialogue and inquiry; not as much about being in charge as it is about enabling the necessary capabilities and outcomes.

Escalating Creativity
by Salma N. Ajani
Creativity requires of us to be what we are, authentic and unique. Sometimes creativity requires everything we have, and then more. Creativity is about being able to see things the others may not. Or even see, hear, and feel in a totally different way.

Apollo 13 and the Definition of Failure
from Ivy Sea Online
The Apollo 13 mission came to be known as "NASA's most successful failure." By the mere mention of those two words in the same sentence — successful failure — Apollo 13 and her crew provide a rich challenge to the notion that failure exists at all, outside of the "make-believe" reality created by our own minds.

Tenets in Common: Virtue - Mastery at Work
from Ivy Sea Online
Here are a few of our favorite "Tenets in Common" and examples of how they might enhance your workplace (and your own experience of it!)

Uncovering Soul in the Workplace
by Eileen McDargh
Soul is in! What prompts the use of this term? Does this appear to be calling for a spiritual revival across the world of business? Here is an insightful analysis.

Are You Feeding Your Customers a Line of Bull?
from Ivy Sea Online
Evidence abounds of companies creating authenticity gaps between the words they spew and the actions they do. Ensure an authentic company voice.

Authenticity & Leadership
from Ivy Sea Online
What's the connection? We wonder why it’s so lonely at the proverbial "top," or why truly authentic leadership is a rarity.

Related Topics: Creative Leadership I | II | III | Ethics

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