Teaching authentic leadership

Dawn Z Bournand, QS TopExecutive Editor, speaks with Handel Group Co-Founder and Vice-Chairman, Beth Weissenberger about the Handel Method. This highly interactive coaching and consulting method is being used today in top business schools across the US and is having a positive impact on how authentic leadership is being taught.

What does the term authentic leadership mean to you?

One of our dreams at the Handel Group is teaching what is possible when a person is honest, in every area of his or her life. We teach at Stanford Business School, NYU, Columbia Business School, Wesleyan, Rutgers and Fordham, just to name a few, and the courses we teach are really about designing your life. One of the main principles in designing one’s life is asking what it means to be authentic, what it is to be real and therefore speaking the truth all of the time. When CEOs, company owners and presidents ask me: “How do you retain the top talent? How do you get the best out of people?”, my answer is always the same. It’s called, Building an Honest Culture.

If you have a culture in a company or an institution that is really built on rewarding for honesty, then you’re managing for honesty. Build a culture in a division, where that team gets to speak the truth to each other, no matter what. You will then retain the top talent, because who’s going to want to leave an environment like that?

Since we spend more than 70% of our lives working, our dream (my dream specifically) is to build on this culture throughout the world in organizations. Authentic leadership for me is when you’re dealing with the truth at all times under all circumstances – even when you’ve just done something really disgusting – being able to own it, tell the truth about it, apologize and move on.

I recently did the first day of “Building on a Culture” with an EVP (Executive Vice President) and her 12 direct reports and it was very profound. The first day is all about yourself as an individual leader, and where you get stopped as an individual leader, where you’re not being effective as an individual leader. You do all of this publicly in front of the team; and you start teaching people how to speak the truth no matter what. The EVP told me the results demonstrated by that team just from that one day are already remarkable. I’m going back in two weeks to lead the second day which is really about being honest amongst the team and saying everything they haven’t been saying. We’re going to deal with the team’s complaints and then invent a new team. What happens in the level of productivity and revenue when you do that is remarkable.

It must take incredible courage on the leader’s part to get up in front of his or her employees and speak the truth.

It does, always. When we get hired in schools, in corporations, etc. the leader who is going to hire us really needs to be a bit of a maverick. Because we are edgy, we are unique, we are different. We are not in any way your normal consultants because we are only ever going to teach people to do and speak the truth.

This EVP, for example, publicly admitted she had been avoiding having a conversation that I had coached her to have with her employees about their dreams. She admitted to her team that she feared having those conversations because, God forbid, they didn’t want to be working there, or they wanted to go to another company and be in a bigger position. She told her team she was scared of losing them because she valued all of them and didn’t want to lose them. She realized though that her job is to help them have what they want in their lives, and if they dream of moving to a different agency and/or having a bigger role, then she needed to make sure they get that and that she finds the next person for their place. When she admitted that, it was very powerful. Before that, this had been one of her team’s issues, and they wondered ‘Does she even care about us? Has she even asked me what my goals are?’ Delving into her authentic leadership got he involved in a more meaningful way.

You mentioned earlier you work with many of the top business schools, but if there is a business school that is not working with you, what can they do to ensure they’re teaching authentic leadership in their classrooms?

They have to want it. You can’t coach someone who doesn’t want to be coached. We’ve been teaching at MIT for six years, and every single year we do a year long program; it’s a week long program and a year’s worth of coaching, going back every other week. From Stanford Business School, to MIT, to NYU, at every school we have been in, there was someone there who knew of us and knew the difference that we make in educating our graduate and undergraduate students, and they invented the class and invited us along.

Savvy business schools realize they need to teach their participants to be ready for the business world and that includes adding the dimension called, “for the human being”. The schools we work with know that’s important. They invest in teaching their students – our future leaders and our future presidents – that humanity and being remarkable, speaking the truth, and designing your life, are important parts of becoming an educated, authentic leader.

Can you talk about a specific success story that you’ve had involving authentic leadership?

I got hired for an EVP at a major media company. The guy is this great human being, early 40’s, has a wife and two children, happy, and loved at the company. His 14 direct reports, however, thought something was up with him, so they hired me to make sure. This guy was considered to be a rock star, and everyone really wanted to make sure that he remained, and developed himself.

We interviewed his 14 people about him and we got a list on him that was huge. It wasn’t good. I remember sitting with him, reading him the report, and he was teary-eyed, devastated. When you have someone who is committed to being extraordinary, and then he finds out he is not so great at it and that his people really can’t stand him, and gossip about him all the time, it is of course devastating. I had already done the six weeks of coaching with him beforehand though so it wasn’t a total surprise to him, given his personality.

In the next couple of months of working with him and working with his 14 direct reports, we altered the culture of him as a leader. His relationship with those 14 people changed in such a way that when I had lunch with him about a month ago, he had not only lost 30 lbs , received awards , gotten bonuses and raises but he had also really altered himself to be loved and respected by his people. He still remains there and his people still remain there but he is not the same human being out of it.

Do you have any final words of wisdom for our readers?

It’s really going to take courage, which everybody has, to be honest with yourself first. It’s important, when you look at yourself day-to-day, to understand what you’re proud of and what you’re not. We have our clients interview their direct reports, their families, their children, their partners, their boyfriends and girlfriends to find out: “Am I doing a good job?”

My daughter will always tell me how I’m doing. And she will always tell me:“You know, that’s not okay, and I want you to work on that.” And I think that’s ok. We teach getting off the pedestal. Get off your pedestal as a boss. Get off your pedestal as a parent, and really deal with yourself in a caring and honest way.

It takes courage, but that courage, if you do it, will leave you being so happy and proud in your life. Really, no matter what you do, being that kind of remarkable person in your life is what we need on this planet. So, please, have the courage to do this.

The Handel Group is a corporate consulting and private coaching company, founded by coaching pioneers and sisters Lauren (Handel) Zander and Beth (Handel) Weissenberger. Handel Group coaches work one-onone with executives, managers and personnel on developing exceptional leadership skills, solving issues and creating a culture of integrity and accountability within themselves and the company. They work with top executives and management in organizations such as AOL, BASF, Sony-BMG, BP – Beyond Petroleum, The New York Times Company and Vogue and currently teach courses at NYU, MIT and Stanford Business School.