Most people have heard the old saying, “Don’t do what I do, do what I say,” or some variation of that message. In fact, people who do not speak from a place of authenticity often struggle in both business and personal relationships.

Focusing on being authentic in communication with everyone is one of the soft skills that highly successful leaders learn to use effectively. In reality, these leaders don’t just use authenticity; they embody authentic communication, which becomes the only way they interact with others.

What Is Authentic Communication?

Being authentic in any communication means being true to yourself and your values. However, it does not mean your opinion, ideas, statements, or the content you communicate is correct. What it means is that you are willing to share your knowledge, ideas, or opinions and open up the potential for others to share theirs.

In sharing your feelings and contributions honestly and authentically, you are modeling what you hope others do as well. At the same time, being open to listening to their insight and discussing the shared information shows respect and appreciation for their contribution to helping in solving the problem.

Building Trust

One of the significant benefits of using authentic communication that provides active listening, opportunities for discussion, and respect for the contributions of others, is that communication becomes a safe activity.

People feel included and valued, which also means they build trust between group and team members, leadership and employees, and people in family or social circles. It is also a critical step in learning more about the people in your world on more than a surface level.

Understanding more about people helps you be empathetic and recognize the various challenges that individuals may face without anyone knowing these issues are in their lives.

It is essential to work on authentic communication, particularly if it has not been a part of management or workplace culture. Start with evaluating your own communication for authenticity, honesty, and alignment with your values.

Provide a safe space for your team to talk to each other in authentic types of discussion. Elevating these discussions and modeling how to listen, communicate with respect, and even where and how to hold these conversations are great starting points in moving from authoritative types of discussions to authentic communication from a place of personal growth.

How Do Leaders Effectively Deal with Incivility?

by Cindy Stradling CSP, CPC

More and more I am hearing from leaders the challenges they are experiencing with workplace incivility.  This wasn’t a term I had really heard too much until recently.  Wikipedia defines it as “low-intensity deviant behavior” with ambiguous intent to harm the target. There is a difference between harassment, violence and incivility.  The behaviours that are normally associated with incivility include insulting or rude comments, telling lies about other people, spreading false rumors, social isolation and just plain bad manners.

So what is the leader of an organization to do? Don’t they have more important things to attend to then what some might consider petty. Nothing could be further from the truth. This type of behaviour can have a negative impact on morale, relationships and ultimately the bottom line.

One of our alliance partners has been working with a number of organizations in both the public and private sectors, bringing awareness and education to their organizations.  For those companies who are working with her they are experiencing higher levels of engagement and productivity, not to mention happier employees.

According to The Cost of Bad Behavior by Christine Pearson and Christine Porath, it is far more widespread than people realize—and incivility in the workplace has devastating effects. Here are just a few of the statistics from their research study of 800 employers:

• 96 percent have experienced incivility at work
• 48 percent of employees claim they were treated uncivilly at work at least once a week
• 10 percent said they witnessed civility every day
• 94 percent of workers who are treated uncivilly say they get even with their offenders

What a actions and behaviours are considered to be uncivil in the workplace?

• When an employee deliberately destroys an employee’s reputation
• Telling lies behind someone’s back
• Being obnoxious or rude
• Not providing all the information when they have it (purposely withholding)
• Even simple things like: not use manners such a please and thank you, interrupting or ignoring, checking text or email messages in a meeting, or arriving late to  a meeting (generally overall being disrespectful of colleagues, managers and sometimes even customers)

There is a lot of time and money invested every year by powerful leadership teams who want to create a more engaged workplace and it can be a waste of time and resources if the culture is not one of respect.  Teams that work in an environment that is disrespectful, often experience higher levels of stress and lower morale.  Sick time increases and in some cases it can create angry employees prone to outbursts.  Creating a civil workplace is not only good for the employees it is good for business and customer service.

Here are a few tips on how to create a more respectful workplace:

1. Increasing Awareness
By recognizing that incivility is an issue, it is time for the leaders to step up, acknowledge that it is happening and educate your employees.  A lot of people don’t realize what is actually going on and causing them so my frustration at work. Leaders need to talk about what it is and what it looks like. There is a lot of research on the impact of incivility, this information needs to  shared.

2. Workplace Standards Need to be Created
Create and publish clear, written standards for acceptable behavior and not acceptable behaviour. The Leaders in your organization must participate fully in the creation process and most importantly model the behaviour they want to see.  Emphasize the importance of consistency in the respect for employees. It is a great idea to include civility as one of your values.

 3. Training and Coaching
This step in critical to raise awareness as some folks may not view their behaviour as uncivil.  Making sure employees know with certainty what is considered acceptable behaviour and what is not.

 4. Open Communication and Feedback
Effective leaders know the importance of open communication and feedback. They need to set the standard and demonstrate what that standard looks like during every day activities.  Employees need to feel safe in providing feedback at those times when incivility takes place.  This is critical to the success of the program.Working in a civil workplace is good for workers, customers, leadership team and the organization as a whole.  Many organizations are making the creation and maintenance of a respectful workplace standards part of their goals and values.

Athena Alliance Members – A Closer Look at Carrol Suzuki

Since I started the Athena Alliance blogtalk radio show I have had the opportunity to share with our listeners the expertise of our diverse group of trainers, facilitators, coaches and consultants.  Each member has a profile featured on our website and I thought for upcoming blogs I would share with our readers a more personal look at some of our partners and in no particular order.

Carrol Suzuki

A few years ago a fellow Toastmaster sent me an email and said he had just attended a course on listening and the facilitator was incredible and that I needed to connect with her.  It took several months before Carrol and I were able to meet.  What can I say?  It was love at first site!  She was everything and more that my friend had describe.  I was so impressed with how she listened to me and I think for the first time in a long time I felt really understood.

I knew right away she was definitely someone I wanted in my alliance. I always do my due diligence with all my new partners and Carrol was no different.  I participated in a program with three other leaders.  It was a really affirming to me that I was a good listener.  We were all able to identify the areas we wanted to work on and through various exercises were able to deepen our ability to really listen to others.  One lady in our group was really impacted by the second session we had together.  She saw how the way she was listening to her boss was affecting her ability to connect with him.  She used the techniques taught by Carrol and reported to us in our third session, things has really changed in their communication and relationship.  I too was able to identify a few filters I had for the people in my life and applied my learning and now have much more open communication with those individuals.

Our clients have consistently complimented me on how great her courses are and continue to use her services as both a facilitator and as a coach.  I too look forward to working with Carrol for many years to come.

Here is a link to Carrol’s profile:

http://webmarketingnorth.net/athena/alliance-partners/carrol-suzuki-b-sc-m-ed-acc

One of the great things about running the Athena Alliance is the vast amount of knowledge and sharing.  For the summer months I thought I would like to share with you some of the great articles written by my Alliance Members.  On May 21^st 2008 our Alliance Partner, Scott Kress stood on top of the world, he had just successfully climbed Mount Everest.  He shares with us his experience and his learning.

Learning In Thin Air
by Scott Kress

It was a pretty amazing site to see the world from that height; the same height at which commercial jets fly. I could see hundreds of mountains, the arid Tibetan plateau and the curvature of the earth. I was exhausted, but overjoyed at the same time.

I am not an exceptional athlete, nor am I not blessed with super human genes, I am just a normal person with a dream. My dream was to climb Mount Everest. Like many people with big dreams I did not really expect it would come true. I had climbed mountains all around the world and even guided for a while, but I always felt Everest was out of my league. Then life happened and I changed my view.

In the spring of 2005 my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was admitted to the hospital and died a few short months later. It was too quick, he was too young (61). I was shocked that something like this could happen. I started to think about my mortality. Then I was also diagnosed with cancer. Mine was caught early and with a couple quick surgeries I was cancer free, but the shaky hold we have on life would stay with me. I resolved to live out my dream of climbing Everest.

I set out for Nepal in March with four friends. Our intention was to climb the North East Ridge in Tibet, but the Chinese Government had different ideas and cancelled our climbing permit at the last moment. They were fearful that we would interfere with their attempt to carry the Olympic Torch to the summit as part of the international torch relay. We quickly re-grouped and secured a permit to climb Everest from Nepal via the South Col and the Southeast Ridge.

Arriving at Base camp on April 9 we set up our home for the next seven weeks. We began to make climbs higher and higher on the mountain to acclimatize to the lower levels of oxygen and pressure and to stock our higher camps with gear, food, and oxygen. I traveled through the infamous Ice Fall, spend time at our rugged Camp 2, climbed the deadly Lhotse face and slept at the spectacular Camp 3. I was now acclimatized and ready to make my attempt on the summit.

Once the Chinese made the summit with the torch we were allowed to go for the top. After Camp 3 I strapped on supplemental oxygen and marvelled at the increase in my strength. I had not noticed how debilitating the lack of oxygen had been. My trip to Camp 4 was exciting and full of anticipation of what would come.

Once in Camp 4 I spent several hours resting, drinking, and eating and then departed for the summit at 9pm. The full moon shown bright and led the way through the dark. The night was relatively warm, but my toes were still going numb. After 10 hours of climbing I reached the top. I slumped down in the snow too tired to celebrate, but I had made it.

Our team put four out of five climbers on the top. We were very successful and I attribute this success to several factors. We worked as a team and supported one another and we did not succumb to the rumours and drama all around us. I dared to dream and with careful planning and attention to detail, I made it.

Lessons learned on the world’s highest mountain:

1) Leadership is a critical factor in determining the team culture.

2) Team dynamics will strongly influence personal commitment and level of risk adversity

3) A strong team culture enables the team members to better deal with change and challenge

4) At least 50% of success is dependent upon leadership and team development

5) Open communication helps leaders make better decisions and helps team members commit to the decisions

6) Open communication also enables the leader to learn of challenges as they arise and alternative views and ideas

7) No one can climb alone, it takes a team to make it to the top