There’s this great article from the Harvard Business Review called Discovering Your Authentic Leadership that I use as part of the Leadership Development Program I facilitate at work. We kicked off the first official week today, making this officially my tenth time reading this article. My first was in the fall of 2015 when I was a member of our first program along with the rest of the leadership team. It’s funny reading the same content over and over again, not because it’s monotonous, but because I’m a slightly different person each time. It’s meaning grows and changes with me.
It’s a great read (sadly locked behind a membership login on their website) about how being authentic and understanding the power you have over your own story helps you lead, but here’s the passage that always resonates the most to me:
“Think of your life as a house, with a bedroom for your personal life, a study for your professional life, a family room for your family, and a living room to share with your friends. Can you knock down the walls between these rooms and be the same person in each of them?”
When I first read this five years ago, it terrified me that my answer was ‘no’. I didn’t feel like I was the same person in all aspects of my life and who I was at home and work and with my friends, all felt like very different people. None of whom I really wanted to be.
Since that first reading, my life has changed a lot and I’ve put energy into living an integrated life by being authentic in whatever space I’m in. This is part blessing that I am allowed to bring my whole self to work — quirks and nerdiness and all. But being myself has made me better at my job.
I don’t want to compartmentalize my life into different buckets, I want to have one life where I feel whole. I’m not talking about boundaries here (which are important), but about values. Once you can truly say you can walk through every room of your metaphorical house and be living the same values, well, life gets a lot easier when you can be yourself.
With Love,
Natalie