Tweet This
Ora Shtull and I recently interviewed acclaimed leadership coach Kimberly Davis, founder of the OnStage Leadership Program and author of Brave Leadership: Unleash Your Most Confident, Powerful, and Authentic Self to Get the Results You Need. We talked about why connecting your purpose to your work builds confidence and how self-confidence helps you refocus your attention toward what's important to you and away from fear and risk. Kimberly also shared her thoughts on what it means to be brave in the workplace. Here are the highlights of our conversation.
William Arruda: You have a story about how you arrived at Brave Leadership.
Kimberly Davis: I was one of those kids who was fearless. Then I go off to college to study theater, and I go into my first audition, and it was as if I was completely hijacked. I stood up there on the stage and my hands were sweating, and my stomach was in knots, and then I couldn't think; I couldn't even tell you my name. And so I worked my way through that. I ended up getting cast in spite of myself.
Fast forward many years, and I end up in training and development. I started observing all of the participants in my sessions, and I noticed that when they were in the spotlight, they felt like the stakes were high, and they were vulnerable. All of a sudden, they weren't their most powerful selves. I realized that some of the tools we used in theater could make a difference in the business environment, and that's what I've been doing for the last 20 years.
Ora Shtull: Authenticity is an integral part of personal branding that William always emphasizes. On the other hand, we're talking about being on stage and acting. So, how do you resolve this potential conflict?
Davis: The craft of acting is really about the search for truth. It's about understanding those characters at a visceral level. What drives them? What matters to them more than anything in the world? What's their purpose? Why do they care? They’re not thinking, “What does the audience think about me? Do I look stupid? Am I going to make a mistake?” The work that I do with leaders is about helping them identify “who are you as a leader?” How do we translate that into active language, or what I call your super objective?
So, in every situation you face, you can focus your attention to take action – to achieve what you stand for instead of trying to hit your numbers.
Shtull: “Purpose” can be a very intimidating word for a lot of people.
Davis: It’s a lot simpler than most people think. It begins with the question “why do I care?” What are the vision, mission and values of this organization? What is it that your organization is up to? Why do you personally care about that? What matters to you about that? What's the impact you want to have on your employees? What's the impact you want to have on your community or your client? And once you can name that, you can do something about it. But if you haven't named it, you can't take aim in every situation you face. You're throwing your darts in the dark.
Arruda: Are there key attributes that you believe successful leaders have?
Davis: You can't force someone to want to follow you, right? They have to experience you as authentic. Bill George wrote the book Authentic Leadership and defines authenticity as “genuine, worthy of trust, reliance, and belief,” which I think is awesome. It’s your audience that gets to decide whether they experience you as genuine, worthy of trust, reliance, and belief. And where that gets really complicated, is that what one person is going to need from you, to experience you as genuine, is going to be very different from what somebody else is going to need from you.
Pay attention and respect the needs of the people you want to lead and influence. Be able to address those needs, going in prepared. The other piece is focusing on taking purposeful action because your words and your actions are congruent with who you truly are. So, make sure you're not talking one thing and doing something else.
Shtull: You have the word “leadership” in the title of your book, but you also have the word “brave.” Brave is a big word. I mean, brave is for heroes. What does it mean, and how can we connect with that word?
Davis: The traditional definition of brave is being willing to face or endure pain or danger. Just thinking about it makes us nervous. The way I redefined being brave for myself is being your best, most authentic, and powerful self. If I can be my best, most authentic, and powerful self, then I'm able to do the tough stuff, and then I'm able to move through and take the risks I need to take and make the impact I need to make. The way I do that is through making sure I'm being genuine, worthy of trust, reliance, and belief in the eyes of the people I'm trying to connect with. The way I do that is by taking action toward my own super objective and trying to make the impact that I'm working to make. The by-product of that is that I'm able to show up more bravely in the world. I'm able to get through the pain and danger because I'm not focusing on the pain and danger; I'm harnessing my attention to focus on achieving my super objective.
Our minds can only focus on one thing at a time. Focus on an impact outside yourself. Take yourself out of the spotlight.
Arruda: Let's apply it to the workplace.
Davis: There are a lot of obstacles when you work in an organization. If you stop being who you are in the face of every obstacle that shows up in your path, people aren't going to experience you as authentic. It begins with clarity, because if you can't name it, you can't do anything about it.
Shtull: What about the notion of “fake it till you make it?” How do you feel about that one?
Davis: Confidence is a by-product of knowing that you can count on yourself. So, telling yourself that you have to fake it is telling yourself that you don't have it. You're focusing on the pain and danger, all the things that could go wrong. The bigger question is how do you take your focus off the fact that you're scared? Shift your attention so you can experience yourself making an impact.
William Arruda is the cofounder of CareerBlast and creator of the complete LinkedIn quiz that helps you evaluate your LinkedIn profile and networking strategy.
