Hi Reader

"Authentic" was named the 2023 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster.

A search for "authentic leadership" on Google produces over 1.7 million results. Amazon features over 40,000 books on the topic. Academic interest has exploded over the last decade.

Everyone's talking about authenticity.

No one's talking about how terrifying it actually is.

Authenticity is the fourth dimension on The Intention Gap Scorecard.

And it asks a question most leaders avoid: Can you be yourself, or have you had to become someone else to succeed?

Let me show you what this looks like in practice.

A few weeks ago, I was coaching a CEO. She runs a $200-300 million organisation. Smart. Accomplished. Respected.

And in our conversation, I noticed something.

She was people-pleasing.

So I called it out.

I'm direct. I don't have time to waste, and neither do my clients. So I said it plainly: "Do you realise what you just described is people-pleasing? When are you going to stop?"

She went quiet.

I could see the physical reaction. The shift in her body. The discomfort of having that word attached to her. People-pleaser. A CEO of a $200-300 million company. Those two things aren't supposed to go together.

But they do. More often than you'd think.

I sat in the silence. I'm good at that. The awkwardness stretched. And eventually, she replied. We had one of the most honest conversations of our entire engagement.

---

Here's what I want you to understand about that moment.

I'm not paid to be nice. I'm paid to be real.

My clients have people being nice to them all day. People agreeing with them. People softening the truth. People telling them what they want to hear because that's easier than telling them what they need to hear.

The space we create in executive coaching is meant to be different. It's meant to be real. But even that is easier said than done.

Because there's a difference between nice and kind.

Nice is surface. Nice protects feelings. Nice avoids the uncomfortable truth because it might cost the relationship.

Kind is real. Kind is connection. Kind says, "I care about you enough to tell you the truth."

That's authenticity.

Nice people don't tell the truth. Kind people do, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard.

When I asked that CEO when she was going to stop people-pleasing, I wasn't being nice. I was being kind. And that moment was uncomfortable for both of us.

But discomfort is where growth lives.

Being authentic has backfired on me more times than I can count.

I've said the thing that needed to be said and watched relationships fracture. I've been myself in rooms that weren't built for someone like me and felt the temperature drop. I've been direct when diplomacy was expected and paid the price.

Authenticity is not free. That's what nobody tells you.

There is a cost to being real. A cost to being seen. A cost to standing out when blending in would be so much easier.

And that cost is why most people choose the mask.

Here's the truth about why authenticity is so hard.

It's not about confidence. It's not about courage. It's about fear.

Fear of rejection. Fear of being not enough. Fear of what happens when people see the real you and decide they don't like what they see.

The image below is what true authenticity can look like.

That fear is real & it's learned.

At some point, you discovered that certain parts of you were acceptable and certain parts weren't. You learned to amplify the parts that got approval and hide the parts that didn't. You became skilled at reading rooms, adjusting your tone, calibrating your presence.

You didn't become inauthentic because you're weak. You became inauthentic because you're smart. It was a survival strategy. And it worked.

Until it didn't.

Until the mask became so familiar you forgot it was a mask. Until you couldn't remember who you were underneath it. Until the success you built started feeling like it belonged to someone else.

The conversation that CEO had? It started with a question she'd been avoiding. That's the work I do with leaders. Not surface-level coaching. Not gentle affirmations. The uncomfortable conversations that change everything. If you're ready to close the gap between who you're performing as and who you actually are, let's talk. Book A Conversation Here

I've navigated this my whole life.

A black man from Nigeria. Raised in the UK. Operating in boardrooms, leadership programmes, and executive coaching sessions across the world. Spaces that weren't designed for someone who looks like me.

My authenticity has been questioned constantly. Too direct. Too casual. Too different.

But the reason I've been able to navigate it successfully is because I did the work on my authenticity years ago. I stopped asking "how do I fit in?" and started asking "who am I when I'm not trying to fit in?"

That shift changed everything.

Here's where intention falls into the gap.

Most leaders genuinely want to be authentic. They've read the books. They've been to the workshops. They have every intention of showing up as themselves.

But when the pressure comes, they default to the version that feels safe.

The version that won't offend. The version that won't stand out. The version that protects them from the vulnerability of being truly seen.

The intention was real but the fear won.

And every time fear wins, you reinforce a pattern. You teach yourself that the real you isn't safe. You build a career, maybe even an identity, on a foundation that isn't actually yours.

That's the gap.

This is what the fourth dimension measures.

Are you being yourself, or have you become someone else to succeed?

Do you filter who you are depending on who's in the room? Do you shrink parts of yourself to make others comfortable? Do you know who you'd be if approval wasn't a factor?

These patterns cost you more than you realise. They cost you energy. They cost you connection. They cost you the kind of leadership that only comes from being fully, unapologetically you.

Because if the person leading isn't really you, then who exactly is doing the leading?

One question for this week:

• What would you say or do differently if you weren't afraid of how it would land?

The Intention Gap Scorecard is free and takes five minutes. It'll show you exactly where you're falling into the gap and what to do about it.

[Take the scorecard here]

Your homework this week:

Notice when you adjust yourself to fit the room. Don't judge it. Just notice. Who are you before the adjustment? That's the person worth getting to know again.

Let me know when you've done it.

See you next Monday.

​​​​​ ​Unsubscribe · Preferences​