This last week I attended the re:invent Amazon Web Service Conference in Vegas. It was a good conference, in a good venue. I learned a lot of good technology stuff. One non-technical session I really enjoyed, was a key note address in the style of a fireside chat, with Jeff Bezos (you can see it here).
Bezos is an intense, really smart guy. What he has done at Amazon is incredible (interesting side note: he does not have a degree in business, but a degree Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). What struck me most about his talk was his authenticity. He would admit he didn't know sometimes, and talk about mistakes he has made. He talked about working customer service calls and sweeping the warehouse floors at Amazon. Not a lot of pretension there.
Authenticity is key in a leadership role. Engineers are especially really good at picking up phoniness, and once they sense you are phony, they loose respect for you; and without their respect, you can't lead. Besides, it's requires too much negative energy to keep pretending to be something you are not. If you don't know, say you don't. If you have doubts, say you have doubts - even if it is in yourself. If someone else knows better, ask their opinion.
Authenticity requires a fair amount of self-awareness, which few people are really willing to spend time on. You have to know who you are, what you know and what you don't, and, most importantly, be willing to put your ego aside and not be the smartest guy in the room.
Authenticity also means that you recognize that people "under" you are just like you. You are no better than them, and that you are all working for a common purpose. You also need to be able to recognize that in many (if not most cases), those working for you contribute more than you to the success of what you are working on.
I love this quote from Jack Welch, from his book Winning (hat tip to TechCrunch):
"When I was at GE, we would occasionally encounter a very successful executive who just could not be promoted to the next level. In the early days, we would struggle with our reasoning. The person demonstrated the right values and made the numbers, but usually his people did not connect with him. What was wrong? Finally, we figured out that these people always had a certain phoniness about them. They pretended to be something they were not — more in control, more upbeat, more savvy than they really were. They didn’t sweat. They didn’t cry. They squirmed in their own skin, playing a role of their own inventing. A leader in times of crisis can’t have an iota of fakeness in him. He has to know himself — and like himself — so that he can be straight with the world, energize followers, and lead with the authority born of authenticity."
If you want to have success and really lead, lay aside the ego and start to be authentic. As counterintuitive as it may sound, those that work for you will have more respect for you, approach you more, and enjoy working with you more. Oh yeah - and your team will have more success.
