Authenticity is the degree to which one is true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character, despite external pressures.

Becoming authentic is an ongoing process of self-discovery that includes realizing our personal and collective potential and acting on that potential. Part of the process is accepting  responsibility for our choices and their consequences. The process leads to congruency between our ideals, values and our actions.

Authenticity in the microcosm of the individual,  propagates to the macrocosm.  Our intention to be authentic in every interaction both individually and collectively results in resilient human relationships.   By being mindful of our interactions we enculture authenticity.

Authenticity is essential for  building sustainable communities.  When we can show up as ourselves and genuinely like the people we engage with,  then collectively,  we are better able to adapt,   find new solutions and  flourish in a changing environment.

Individual Authenticity

• Do I think for myself and speak my truth?
• What fascinates me, what potentials do I want to explore?
• Do I own the consequences of my choices?
• What qualities do I value in myself and in others?
• Is my behavior congruent with my values?
• Where is my compass pointing me to at this time?

Authentic Interaction

• Am I mindful of how my choices may influence another person?
• Do I recognize diversity and appreciate the differences in others?
• Do I interact with others with  respect and courtesy?
• How do I extend degrees of trust?
• Do I respond appropriately when a personal boundary is crossed?
• Is my behavior appropriate given my role and the interaction?
• Do I observe and process the results of my interactions?

Authentic Group Engagement

• What is the group formed to accomplish?
• What am I here to do? What is my role? What contribution is expected of me?
• Is there an expectation of mutual accountability – if so what is it?
• What strategies is the group applying to find solutions?
• How will the group negotiate an impasse should one occur?
• How can we cultivate the positive dynamics of this team?

Organisational Authenticity

• As an organisation do we mean what we say?
• How do our customers experience us?
• Is integrity infused in our products? Is quality a priority?
• How is our culture expressed in our day to day activities?



Jim Clemmer co-founded and led The Achieve Group to become Canada’s largest training and consulting company. He is a clear advocate for grooming leaders and advantaging individuals in the adoption and application of great soft skills. Jim declares that ‘Of course there are some people who remain unconvinced of the value of these “soft skills.” , they’re typically managers with minimal leadership qualities, who prefer to focus on being bottom-line driven, strategists, marketing aces, technical experts, “snoopervisors,” and so on. These managers often talk about the importance of personal effectiveness and development. They pledge undying allegiance to values, mission, and vision. They go on about people issues, like communication, teamwork, respect, and service. But they really think it’s just a lot of fluff. Well, maybe they should think again’.

According to results of a Workforce Profile, (source: http://www.workforce.com/), a valuable employee is one who will grow and learn as the business changes. Soft Skills are defined as all the skills other than technical skills required for a building a successful career. Research has indicated that whilst technical skills account for only 15% , apparently soft skills fuel 85% of a person’s productivity especially in the context of the current stressful business environment. The study analyzed careers of successful businessmen, managers, professionals, salespeople and points out that there are critical key skills required for each professional track which appears to augment retention and job satisfaction.

In the report soft skills are considered “are as important, if not more important, than traditional hard skills to an employer looking to hire regardless of industry or job type. This could offer a major breakthrough as educators and training providers seek to develop and cluster training courses to fit business and industry needs.”

Top 60 soft skills

The Workforce Profile defined about 60 “soft skills”, which employers seek. They are applicable to any field of work, according to the study, and are the “personal traits and skills that employers state are the most important when selecting employees for jobs of any type.”

1. Math.
2. Safety.
3. Courtesy.
4. Honesty.
5. Grammar.
6. Reliability.
7. Flexibility.
8. Team skills.
9. Eye contact.
10. Cooperation.
11. Adaptability.
12. Follow rules.
13. Self-directed.
14 Good attitude.
15. Writing skills.
16. Driver’s license.
17. Dependability.
18. Advanced math.
19. Self-supervising.
20. Good references.
21. Being drug free.
22. Good attendance.
23. Personal energy.
24. Work experience.
25. Ability to measure.
26. Personal integrity.
27. Good work history.
28. Positive work ethic.
29. Interpersonal skills.
30. Motivational skills.
31. Valuing education.
32. Personal chemistry.
33. Willingness to learn.
34. Common sense.
35. Critical thinking skills.
36. Knowledge of fractions.
37. Reporting to work on time.
38. Use of rulers and calculators.
39. Good personal appearance.
40. Wanting to do a good job.
41. Basic spelling and grammar.
42. Reading and comprehension.
43. Ability to follow regulations.
44. Willingness to be accountable.
45. Ability to fill out a job application.
46. Ability to make production quotas.
47. Basic manufacturing skills training.
48. Awareness of how business works.
49. Staying on the job until it is finished.
50. Ability to read and follow instructions.
51. Willingness to work second and third shifts.
52. Caring about seeing the company succeed.
53. Understanding what the world is all about.
54. Ability to listen and document what you have heard.
55. Commitment to continued training and learning.
56. Willingness to take instruction and responsibility.
57. Ability to relate to coworkers in a close environment.
58. Not expecting to become a supervisor in the first six months.
59. Willingness to be a good worker and go beyond the traditional eight-hour day.
60. Communication skills with public, fellow employees, supervisors, and customers.

How many soft skills do you possess?

When it comes to taking soft skills seriously is that most bosses think they are just about ‘touchy-feely’ people skills. Soft skills are powerful in creating great workplace environments, happier relationships and better communications. Encompassing listening, sharing with clarity, heightened awareness, both personal and communal, we raise the bar on being self motivated and professionally respected as a value to any team. In a world where getting, keeping and succeeding at work is imperative, anything we invest in that can make us irreplaceable has to be worth learning. Good leaders are forged from the fire of engagement at every level of the business rockface. Great CEO’s build on the strength of their people. The dot’s aren’t difficult to connect.

Among Peggy’s important workplace lessons are the following:

•Knowing yourself is as important as knowing how to do the job.
•Learn when to stick and when to shift or the details will hang you.
•Your procrastination is trying to tell you something.
•Get smart about asking dumb questions.
•You don’t need to be everyone’s best friend—that’s what dogs are for.
•Know where to draw the line between self-improvement and self-destruction.
•When it comes to gossip, learn the art of deflection.
•Keep your visibility when you’re not face-to-face.
•Don’t take it personally.
•Stop stereotypes from sinking you.
•You’re the boss, stupid, that’s why they hang on your every word.

And, perhaps, most favorite of all: Get out of your own way.

Peggy Klaus reveals The Hard Truth About Soft Skills: Workplace Lessons Smart People Wish They’d Learned Sooner (Collins, January 2008). Peggy is a world class communicator who understands why important soft core competencies are invariably ignored and reveals the fact that soft skills can be the key to enduring success.

According to the Respect Research Group ‘Respect is an attitude of one human versus another, in which the first recognizes in the latter a reason which justifies in itself that the latter should be recognized and treated in a way so that the latter feels acknowledged in his/her value and significance. Respect stands for acceptance, appreciation and esteem and can make a corporate culture “bloom” not only, now, in the New Economy but also to sustain it far beyond it. It seems like companies with especially vigorous philosophies are particularly equipped to establish it as a value through their mission statements.’

Managers at all levels also play an essential role in this process, because for their employees, their attitudes, personal values and communication styles represent an embodiment of the company’s philosophy. The problem is however, that in modern companies forming and popularizing such value-oriented philosophies, often gives way to short-term oriented action plans, which bring quick financial results at the price of undermining the stability of inter-personal relationships in the company and hence threaten its long-term success. In this respect, the importance of corporate culture cannot be overlooked any more and it is more than ever before necessary for the establishment of a rational, responsible and conscientious management.

Two large online surveys were conducted among employees in Germany to explore the importance employees and organizations lay on aspects of interpersonal respect in relation to other work values. The first study (N1 = 589) extracted a general ranking of work values, showing that issues of respect which involve supervisors are rated particularly high among employees. The second study (N2 = 373) replicated the previous value ranking by and large. However, it is shown that the value priorities indicated by employees are not always matched by organizational practices. Especially respect issues which involve employees’ supervisors diverge strongly negative. Consequences and potentials for change in organizations are discussed.

Values are generally seen as intrinsic and enduring perspectives individuals hold throughout different stages of their lifetime. They indicate “what a person consciously or subconsciously desires, wants, or seeks to attain “. Work values represent these sentiments in applied settings, signaling what people strongly care about at their work place. Following this definition, work values are somewhat similar to the valence term in expectancy models of motivation and are thus believed to have a substantial impact on the actual behavior shown at the workplace. They encourage individuals to act in certain ways, affecting even such things as job choice. Whereas commonly work values are assessed as people’s preferences for certain objects or outcomes, such as job security, level of payment and others, we sought to integrate interpersonal respect in this list of more or less classic work values.

The first kind points towards the general acknowledgement of another human, an equal member of the same group, referred to as “recognition respect” or respect for persons. The second kind is directed at an acknowledgement of expertise or skill, referred to as “appraisal respect” or respect for work. These two kinds, although both named respect, are very different in their essence. Recognition respect is very similar to the kind of respect the philosopher Kant proposed. It follows a categorical imperative to respect other human beings by not only seeing them as means to an end but also as an end in themselves. In an organization this respect may show in supervisors who do not only focus onto the performance aspect of their subordinates but are also compassionate or understanding in a time of a private crisis on behalf of the subordinate. They acknowledge that all humans deserve to be treated in the same way that one would want to be treated oneself. Its essence is thus unconditional. There is no question if it is deserved or not. It is not about a personal appreciation or favoring but about following a clear set of conventions, which give people equal rights even though they are different. Research underlined this reasoning by confirming formal rules in justice issues as one of the antecedents of recognition respect.

Appraisal respect on the other hand points at an entirely different phenomenon. It is about the esteem one receives if one performs, if one masters a skill, or one accomplished things that set one positively apart from the rest. So, whereas recognition respect involves a message of equality, appraisal respect does just the opposite. It acknowledges positives differences and rewards them with status. This kind of respect does not draw itself from a general normative law instead it derives its legitimacy from the perceived object itself; it or its actions demand respect.

Thus in an organizational setting appraisal respect might show itself in a supervisor who acknowledges work or performance, may it be through spoken recognition, a promotion, or a raise in salary. Similarly, employees who state that they work for a supervisor they deeply respect is usually a sign of appraisal respect. Whereas in empirical research recognition respect seems to be a result of formal rule following, appraisal respect seems to rely more on the informal treatment in justice concerns.

The following list of work values were those that were posed to the respondents, which encompassed more or less classical aspects of work values usually investigated in companies (such as the original IBM survey later used by Hofstede, 1991; or typical values assessed by consultancies:

(1) having high job security
(2) having a high income
(3) having good career opportunities
(4) working in a job that is valued by society
(5) having enough leisure time besides the job
(6) working on interesting tasks on the job
(7) being able to work independently
(8) working on tasks which require a high sense responsibility
(9) having a lot of direct contact with other people
(10) being able to help others through the job
(11)working in a job that is useful for society
(12) having the feeling to contribute something meaningful
(13) working in a healthy work environment.
(14) working for a supervisor who appreciates my work
(15) working with colleagues who appreciate my work
(16) working with colleagues who treat me with respect
(17)working for a supervisor who treats me with respect
(18) working for a supervisor I can respect
(19) working with colleagues I can respect

As an article written by Dan Bobinski, CEO of Workplace Excellence, in Management Issues highlights, if managers and leaders will not model the expected behaviors for the workplace community, its unlikely the rest of the employees will have any regard for community standards, either. Behaviours equally ought to reflect a commonality of agreed values for the workplace, irrespective of what individuals espouse outside of work.  Relationship Management Institute endeavours to create a ‘plug and play’ culture that enfranchises all employees under a set of principles that offends no one’s personal beliefs but allows a common concordance of cordial collaboration culturally.

Firstly, let’s clarify what culture is?

Culture is embodied in the phrase “this is the way we do things around here”. More precisely, “what people perceive they have to do to fit in, be accepted and rewarded around here”. Culture is the sum of the behavioural norms of the workgroup, team, division or organisation. It is relatively common to have different cultures between teams or divisions within the one organisation. These are referred to as sub-cultures and they can range from being marginally different from the culture of the overall organisation to being quite radically different. This has implications for not only understanding an organisation’s culture but also for managing it effectively.

Why is culture important?

Have you ever tried to stay within the speed limit when everyone around you is driving at speeds well over the speed limit? The behavioural norms of a group can strongly influence the behaviour of the individual. Culture defines the behavioural norms (accepted behaviour) in a group, team, division or organisation. In turn, behaviour underpins the performance (what gets done, when it gets done and how it gets done) of the organisation and perceptions (reputation) of that organisation.

A Framework for Managing Culture

While managing culture requires a range of approaches and cannot simply be managed by dictating theculture you want, it is essentially about managing messages. The objective is to ensure messages are consistently conveyed through aligned behaviours (especially of key people), systems and symbols.

What is accountability?

The key concept is the notion of having a sense of ‘responsibility’ and a willingness to be ‘answerable’ to others and is the difference between a group and a team. In our experience, the most important factor in developing accountability is the quality of leadership and management (and this is the only aspect leaders or managers are really in ‘control’ of). Good leaders and managers generate high levels of accountability in their people.

Whilst organisations should plan to recruit the right people in terms of their willingness to be team players and be accountable; recruitment is only the starting point. The real key is what leaders and organisations do from that point onwards. Good recruits can be ‘lost’ in poorly lead organisations with unsupportive cultures. Many managers see accountability as being attributed to an individual’s values, therefore they blame the individual and underestimate their own role in creating an accountability culture. In doing this, a great opportunity to build a high performance organisation is missed.

Responsibility is not blame

It is important not to mistake responsibility for blame as they are diametrically opposed concepts. Where one exists the other will not remain.Responsibility is the ability to make a response,it is future and action focused. Blame is past focused and is more about the ego – isolating people, teaching them a lesson, point scoring or making them feel guilty/bad than it is about accountability. Guilt and fear is not a good basis for developing accountability.

A Framework for Building an Accountability Culture

We see the steps in building an accountability culture as
being:

1. Building trust as the foundation:

The four key elements of trust are

• Openness/transparency (giving and accepting feedback, transparency in decision making)

• Reliability (doing what you say you are going to do)

• Congruence (saying what you mean)

• Acceptance (acceptance of others and acceptance of differences).

2. Engage your people: meaningful involvement with alignment. Remember you can’t truly and sustainably motivate another person but you can engage them. It is through engagement that motivation will grow.

3. Ownership: once the first two elements are in place people start to ‘take’ ownership – they start to think and act like owners. (As this happens the future possibility for selling down equity, as part of the firm’s succession plan, becomes a reality).

The level of accountability is directly related to the level of trust, engagement and ownership that exists within an organisation. Certainly work at improving all levels simultaneously; however remember higher levels in the pyramid cannot progress any faster than the base they are built on, there are no short cuts. Without trust and engagement no performance measures and rewards will be particularly effective over the medium to long term – you cannot buy accountability. The key to building a culture of accountability is to find a way to lead people without ruling them.

Note: This article appears in the Institute of Chartered Accountants magazine “Charter” in October 2007.