The Powerful and Authentic Leader

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick. And welcome to CareerCasts at Chicago Booth. To help you advance in your career. Today, we're delighted to be speaking with Dr. Karissa Thacker, who is the founder and president of Strategic Performance Solutions, a management consulting firm in the space of human performance and satisfaction at work. She is an adjunct professor at the Learner School of Business at the University of Delaware. And thank you very much for making the time, and so glad that you wrote the book. So let's start off. How do you define authenticity and how do you link it to being powerful?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: There's a lot of, I would say, misinformation in terms of authenticity. And if we look at authenticity from both the philosophical traditions as well as modern and psychological research, it's not simply being yourself. It's about being your best self. So then the question is, how do you do that? And what does that look like? And one of the things that became clear to me.

You can become more authentic over your life span. And when we think about human beings, whether authentic or not, is just not really a fair way to assess how we actually work as humans. Most of us are really looking for opportunities to be our best selves and contribute in a more meaningful way. Some of those positive drives can get short circuited in all of us by bad experiences, essentially, or bad bosses.

So how do we navigate through that? And your second point about power is an interesting one. The word authentic in the Greek means author. I think that we are in the midst of a culture shift in the workplace, where we are redefining power, and this notion of self responsibility is so much more important in the 21st century than it was in the 20th, where the opportunities for us to fit into a box in an organization, that's not the way the world is working now. Being powerful has a lot to do with taking responsibility for yourself and authoring your own life and doing things that are important in the 21st century, like figuring out how to build relationships, how to innovate, how to create meaning and purpose.

Anita Brick: Some people lose their way, like you said. And there was an alum who said, when I graduated from Booth, I had a vision of who I was and what I wanted to be and do. Yet I feel like I've made compromises over the years and lost my authenticity and power in the process. What would you suggest that I do to begin regaining ground?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: What are the tools that a lot of my clients find useful and I have been teaching a lot about lately, is some research done by a wonderful researcher named Tori Higgins, and the concept is that in all of us, instead of being aware of our self, we talk a lot about self-awareness, right? But we should have self awareness.

So the idea is that at any given moment, all of us have operating not just one self, but three selves. The notion of an ideal self, which is as the student mentioned, well, this is my North Star. This is who I really wanted to be. That's my ideal self. And then there's my real self, which is kind of where I am on any given day, and my OT self, which is who I perceive I should be based on social pressure and the reality for all of us is we all have, you know, a real self. But one of the tools that I work with my clients on is just grounding in getting really crystal clear about what that ideal self looks like and who they actually want to be. I encourage people to create a document which are bullet points, which is who my ideal self is. Sometimes the self is right, sometimes it's not. But navigating those three selves helps us make compromises that work for us more effectively and more mindfully. We all compromise, but the things that we compromise on can be substantial, or they can be mild to moderate, and that also can make a difference.

Anita Brick: I am a big believer in the ideal because from that ideal, we have much more value to offer and can be much more contributing. People struggle with this in terms of the practicalities of day to day life. So one of the weekend students asked a question. He said, if we are adopting, changing and growing into a new personality through career change, how can I still be authentic moment to moment or day by day?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: There's an inherent tension between who you are now and who you are becoming when you are in a stretch role. That tension is authentic. And so if we begin to think of authenticity as becoming your best self and we get out of the either or dichotomy, and we think about authenticity as a process of continual self invention and continual growth and change and having this growth mindset all of this sudden, it's not I am what I am, but it's I'm becoming this and that tension is very normal.

That sense of you, I'm not there yet. I did a Ted talk yesterday, and literally 8 to 10 people asked me a version of that question, which is, Carissa, here's what I want to be as a leader. I'm not there yet, but the reality is that having that clear vision and being conscious that you're not there yet is authentic in and of itself, but it's a different way of thinking about the construct than we have historically thought about it.

Anita Brick: I love the concepts you're talking about, but let's take a little bit of a shift. I want us to get super practical and tactical with regard to this next question. So an alumna said, I know how important it is to have an authentic conversation. Here's my dilemma. I am in the process of changing careers, and I'm trying to figure out how to present myself as someone who can do a job I've never done. How would you recommend someone be authentic in this context?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: Let me just back up one thing, and then I'll get really practical and tactical. The person that you're interviewing with at some point took a job that they'd never done before. And the reality is that those stretch opportunities are something that people choose to give to other folks. That is a very typical situation. But in terms of presenting oneself, how do you do it?

Specifically thinking about that job that you want and thinking about it from a competency place? Does that job require pulling together multiple teams? Does that job require financial acumen? What are the specifics that that job requires? It gets really clear in your head about, okay, this job that you want. Here's what it requires. And then think about experiences that you have had that may not be that full constellation, but are related to some of those competencies.

Be clear with the person that you are interviewing with about what you have done that is related to that set of competencies. And furthermore, be clear about some of those things that you have learned that you think are relevant to that job. Third thing, be clear about what your vision for that job is. What do you think that you can contribute to that job and the notion of being humble, but at the same time, having a vision for yourself is relevant to that and be willing to tell the story in a proactive way. None of that is inauthentic at all. If you are going into a stretch role, it's very important that the culture of the organization be one in which people are able to stretch and grow. So have your antenna up for that.

Anita Brick: I like the point that you made about the culture in which an MBA student asked this question, and I think it was related to something that is in your book. Everything I've read about experiments is that they're great to do, and you need them to have stretch roles. Yet I work in an organization that doesn't positively acknowledge failure. What would you advise me to do to create experiments while limiting my risk?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: You know, there's all kinds of experiments. I have worked with clients who were in incredibly risk averse organizations, and they had bosses that would allow a lot of stress. That's the other thing. So for the student, the student needs to also think, as they position themselves inside an organization that is somewhat risk averse, be aware that all the bosses aren't the same on that, even though from the outside looking at a group it may look that way.

They're not. I guarantee you they're not all the same. Thinking about experiments as I do in the book, one of the things that I often say to my clients is find ways to experiment that are low risk. And when I ask a client to step up and do something, we often do a risk analysis. In that risk analysis, we think about who the players are.

We think about what's the worst case scenario. And particularly at the senior levels. We do that a lot because when you think about some of the interaction at the very senior level of the company, you're privy to a lot of information that others are privy to. There's just a lot of complexity to that. It carries through every thing in the organization.

So take for example, you're interested in exploring another department. Take the risk to talk to somebody, assess the risk from your point of view, and begin to step out there in ways that are safe. And as you step out there in ways that are safe, you may find more runway. So I say to somebody, take a risk that you see is 5% risk and just try it because what you don't want to do is be stuck and just conform.

Because between the notion of conforming to my environment and the other extreme, which is I'm going to be myself no matter what. There's all kinds of paths to, you know, being effective and authentic at the same time, but it requires stepping back and asking the question, which is, how can I experiment and develop myself while being safe and effective at the same time?

And what you can't do is get stuck in a false dichotomy, but you can't start small. And you can also, even in a very risk averse organization, be thinking about where might be that boss that would be supportive, where might be that bias, you might have a great chemistry with, where they could make a great coach for you. I'm becoming a fan of what I'll call organic mentoring. When people have a great chemistry and they find themselves immersed in a project together, build that relationship, reach out to that person, stay in touch with him or her, and don't wait on a formal mentoring program.

Anita Brick: Between doing those things and having experiments where you have successes leads to greater confidence. And I know in the book you talk about stable and unstable confidence. An evening MBA student asked you to talk about confidence being stable or unstable. How can a person make changes to increase her confidence and make it more stable? I really appreciate your insights. Thanks so much.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: Couple of things are very relevant. The first thing I would say to the student is very few people have totally stable confidence. So when we do studies and we ask people that question, who are viewed as competent executives, and we ask them on a moment by moment basis, how confident do they feel? There's a lot of fluctuation. And when I talk about stable and unstable confidence in the book, I'm actually talking about a little bit bigger concept than the normal fluctuation.

I'm talking about whether or not your confidence is based on the opinions of other people. For example, that whole thing about charisma and the idea that greater need for charismatic leaders surround themselves with essentially an echo chamber of their own opinion because they can't deal with dissent. But dissent. If somebody has stable confidence and they're experiencing dissent and people are challenging them, that doesn't mean that they're going to feel good.

If they're confident, it just means they're going to be able to withstand that. One of the ways that I work with people to increase their confidence is to think about two concepts, one I call resilience, which is how do you get tough or how do you stay in the ring and keep fighting? And then the second one is really to think about it in terms of perseverance.

Let me add a third thing. And this is the one that is the most practical. Be incredibly aware of the way you talk to yourself. There are certain phrases that all of us use that bring us down, myself included. And then there are certain phrases that all of us can use that create more confidence. One of the ones that I have noticed to be incredibly effective with a lot of highly conscientious business students is I am prepared.

And so if you think you have a big presentation coming up and you're feeling shaky confidence, it's scary. Normalize the fear. I'm really enjoying this question. I want to throw out one more thing for the student to look at. If that is what we've learned in psychology, the same neurochemicals in the brain are activated when we describe ourselves as terrified as when we describe ourselves as excited.

Anita Brick: So true. Yeah.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: So back to this notion of learning to manage your own brain and learning to coach yourself in certain ways. I mentioned it, I did a Ted talk yesterday and I was terrified. I really worked with myself around labeling it as excitement. I can't tell you that. I totally would say that I was in the excitement band the whole time of preparation.

We all inch toward terrifying occasionally we got to label it that way and be honest, but that's a very powerful reframe. And to just really understand that those neurochemicals are exactly the same. And in terms of the language that we use in the way we talk to ourselves, it's incredibly powerful to begin to work with that and to begin to hear that.

Anita Brick: Got it. I will speak for myself, but there are those of us who are quirky and have quirks. And to talk about that, we can. Students said. You talk about quirks being a differentiator. I am quirky and I don't feel that this works to my advantage. I'm in strategy consulting where there is a standard that I can't fulfill. If I honor my quirkiness, what would you advise someone like me?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: A couple of things. One, the vast majority of us do have our quirks. There's a difference between and. This is a subtle difference, but it's a very important difference between navigating in an organization and calling for certain parts of yourself, and navigating in an organization and dampening parts of yourself. That sounds like, oh, this is psychobabble. But the reality of that is that if you feel like you have to suppress a void, etc., etc., that's much more difficult than, okay, I'm a strategy consultant.

I need to bring forth the notion of analytical thought or whatever is pushed in the culture and wear a nice suit, whatever it happens to be. The example in the book of Greg, he was a nuclear engineer with the Harley Davidson on the weekend. He was the epitome of the box at work. And again, this is a zero mistake environment.

It's nuclear power. But he found that he was able to work and express his quirkiness and hang out with quirky people in his personal life. No one can tell me or you or this student how to be authentic, but there are ways of expressing parts of yourself. If you are in a work role outside of that work role, what is deadening and kind of makes us less alive is when there are parts of ourselves, including our quirks, that we don't have the opportunity to express.

So there's lots of ways of thinking about that that are not necessarily role dependent. And I actually chose that example because I like the notion that our work doesn't have to be an avenue where we get every need for self-expression, that I think we make a mistake when we think of it that way.

Anita Brick: One thing that came to mind when you were talking about that, the nuclear scientist and the person who is on Harleys, say person.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: Yep.

Anita Brick: Leather pants on the weekend. How do you manage your social media presence? Because even bringing some of that quirkiness or that other side on the weekend could show up when someone does a LinkedIn search or a Google search, when you're looking for a job that may not value or appreciate that other side.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: You are asking a question that honestly, I don't think we have norms around yet. I do encourage all of my students to be incredibly thoughtful about what they post. So I think about this nuclear engineer. If he posted a photo of him on a weekend ride, I don't think there would be any negative consequences for him with that.

But there are many other situations that would involve alcohol or partying or all that. And I can just imagine my senior level clients take on that or in my age group, you know? So I think it's incredibly important to understand that what you post, a person is getting a slice of you, and they may or may not have a broader context to view that.

And I will say that I'm always encouraging my senior executives to be on the side of more transparency in the folks who are in the younger age bands to on the side of less transparency, because it seems like there's a generational difference between the two. I know I had a senior level client. His hobby is cycling these racing bikes, these Italian racing bikes.

He was like, well, I don't know if I could post about that. I don't know if that looks right and I don't see the downside. Tell me what you think the impression would be if they knew you rode 100 miles on weekend. What to help me with the downsides with younger folks, I'm like, okay, so you had a party. If somebody looks at it and all they see is alcohol, that's one slice. But right now, that's how I'm advising folks.

Anita Brick: That's good. Another question came from an alum who said, I work in a highly collaborative environment, and how can I create diversity of thought that doesn't collapse into groupthink based on our shared biases?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: One of the things about highly collaborative organizations is that collaboration can be code for we're all going to be nice to one another. Real collaboration is actually so notable that one of the phrases that I believe is in the book is hire a brilliant antagonist or two. I often will work with teams, and also there's one on life conflict here, you know, where's the conflict?

Where's the energy, where's the friction? And if it's not there, you're not really collaborating because collaborating is messy. Real collaboration is messy. It doesn't mean it's personally acrimonious. But there is diversity of thought. So on a very practical note, I would say to this alarm, there hasn't been a good intense discourse. And I don't mean it got personal.

I mean it got an intense discourse and discord and a difference of opinion where people really talked it through in an intense way within the last ten days. You're not actively collaborating. Now, that sounds extreme. Conflict around ideas is good. It's hard for people to really take in.

Anita Brick: And without a very, very good point, because I know here that is the norm. Challenging question. Everything. Yeah, not always so much. So in the corporate world or in any kind of organization. Very, very good point. Very well taken. Do you have time for a couple more questions? You're good. Here's someone who is searching for an opportunity in an early stage company. I've seen that many founders are bold and charismatic. What questions would you suggest? I ask them to determine if the individual is a good leader or just has a big ego.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: That's a great question. That's a really great question. There's several questions in the book that are really detailed that I would encourage the person to look at, but there are a couple that I think are really important. One, ask that person what were some of the key learnings in their past? What did they learn and see if they will make mistakes?

That's huge. See if they will say, you know, I really screwed up when I started company X and directly own that mistake versus this happened or the environment caused that to happen. But look for that level of personal responsibility. The second thing is to notice the diversity of opinion. Notice who that person is surrounded with. Is he or she surrounded with people who are strong, who are willing to question them?

The worst way to get it is directly. But if you have the opportunity to get to know other members of the team and get a sense of who they are as well as this charismatic founder, take it or make that opportunity what you have to remember with the startup, if you're the person looking for a job, it may feel like it's huge.

If it doesn't work for you, it's huge. If it doesn't work for the startup too, because people are not expendable in that kind of way. And bad hires are costly in all kinds of ways. And not just funny, actually. So I think it's more than fair to get to know as many people as you possibly can and notice how they interact with that charismatic leader. And that's one of the points about, you know, is it authenticity or is it charisma? It's not just how the person comes across it, how their teams actually work, because we all know that leaders affect how teams work.

Anita Brick: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And one of the things that can happen, especially if you find a startup that looks like it has great potential, maybe it can become a unicorn and all of that. It's to get caught up in the moment and not have that deliberate, thoughtful process that you are suggesting. I think that's a good thing to do, and maybe have some folks outside of the organization that can be a bit of a reality check for you and remind you to ask the questions.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: It's intoxicating. I love it.

Anita Brick: Work, yeah, hard.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: I mean, it's intoxicating. It's intense, and it's easy to get carried away on the train of the intensity. And I think you will find a high percentage of really charismatic leaders in that environment. And so it's a big washout to get disciplined. But, you know, you're faded if you've totally forgotten to think about, okay, what's the downside of this opportunity. The emotion is great, the intensity is great. But a little bit of discipline. Be thinking about who you're working with and how it goes a long way.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right. So we've had a lot of good insight. So what are three things that a person could begin doing today to increase his or her authenticity and power?

Dr. Karissa Thacker: The first thing is to get really clear about what that ideal self looks like. And this can be done in 30 minutes, 3 or 5 characteristics that really characterize who you want to be as a leader and what you want your impact to be in literally 3 to 5 bullet points. Keep that with you and keep it top of mind.

You'll be amazed at how that impacts your behavior and impacts choices that you make. The second thing, you begin to think of your role in broader ways. How could you in your role from where you sit, leverage who you are in a way that's unique? What are the unique opportunities in the role that you're in right now? What do they look like if you are going to change jobs?

What would that be? And if you were going to add value, extreme value from that job, what would that look like if you were going to make that role more important, what would it look like? Job crafting. Essentially is the big idea that positive organizational scholars you're talking about with. So really clear about that ideal self. Think about your role in its biggest, broadest terms and then the third thing is to be really cautious and careful about who you work with and for.

Begin thinking about who you surround yourself with more intentionally because you have more control of that than you think you do. I have been amazed how many clients of mine have gotten great opportunities, because they took time to get to know people that they didn't know. If you're in an organization, getting to know five new people is deep and five relationships.

Every moment, very intentionally. In a smaller organization, it's to deepen the relationship. In a bigger organization, it can be to start or some mix between the two. Nobody is successful in their career because they are brilliant. People are successful in their career because they are brilliant and they build great relationships.

Anita Brick: Great ending, great summary. It is absolutely true. Being confident, being brilliant is sort of the ticket in the door when you get to go on will depend on what the relationships are that you develop, where you really create advocates and where it's an exchange. It is not just one way that those relationships flow back and forth.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: Absolutely be the first to do an act of trust to extend yourself, get out there and extend yourself. Say, do you want to get a coffee? You never know what will happen. And the reality of the situation is that in the 21st century, in the workplace, nobody makes anything happen alone.

Anita Brick: Thank you so much. I wish you all the best with that. Thank you very, very much for making the time.

Dr. Karissa Thacker: It was my pleasure.

Anita Brick: Thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brook with CareerCast at Chicago Booth. Keep advancing.