What is Congruent Leadership™️?
A new approach to executive development designed to meet the future of leadership.
TLDR: Authenticity is only the start of what makes for effective leadership. To lead congruently requires matching who you are, and who you want to be, with how you show up in every moment.
You can listen to the full audio version of this post by clicking on the recording below:
Over the last decade, I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of advice positioned as the key to leadership. Some of my favorite generic statements sound like this:
“Be your true self.”
“Lead authentically.”
“Don’t try to be the smartest person in the room.”
“Communicate clearly and with authority.”
“Improve your executive presence.”
For the record, I don’t disagree with any of these leadership one-liners, but I also know that it’s not that easy. In fact, this is actually insufficient guidance that I’ve seen too many leaders apply in detrimental ways. But what does authentic leadership even mean? What does it look like for you? And how do you actually get there?
Too often, I see leaders contort themselves to try to adhere to all of the tips of effective leadership. In an effort to be a great leader, we’re often overwhelmed by these statements. At best it can feel exhausting to try to constantly behave the way the world thinks you should. At worst it can look disingenuous and performative that ends up actually being incredibly ineffective. We hear it enough, “fake it until you make it,” but in all cases, emulating great leaders doesn't make you one. It’s time to stop pretending to be someone you’re not and start discovering the leader that only you can be.
At Congruent Leadership, we take a different approach.
In the field of psychology, congruence is an important concept that is tied to durable mental health and personal growth. It refers to the consistency between a person’s internal thoughts, their genuine feelings, and the outward expression of their behavior. As a human, the more you live in congruence, the better you function and the happier, and healthier you are. When you’re incongruent, it affects your psychological well-being and can become a debilitating mental health like depression and anxiety.
In our day to day lives, incongruence is more pervasive than ever. Too many of us are pretending to be someone we’re not. We post about lavish travel when we’re actually living paycheck to paycheck, and document the gilded journey of entrepreneurship when maybe we’re really struggling with team morale and customer satisfaction. Incongruence is everywhere, but it isn’t just about mental health. This psychological concept must also be applied to leadership.
So, what is Congruence in Leadership?
Congruent Leadership aims to align who you are and who you want to be, with how you show up in every single moment. And it’s more than just alignment. Building congruence as a leader is the process of examining your inner landscape, designing the fullest version of your potential, and marrying those with your every expression and interaction you have as you move about your role.
Let’s break this down further…
So, who are you?
Examining who you are sounds a lot simpler than it is. To truthfully and genuinely understand yourself, it isn’t enough to stop at the labels that often make up your identity (like spouse, CEO, entrepreneur etc). Nor is it an invitation to unapologetically justify yourself. We’ve all heard someone say, “That’s just who I am.”
Understanding who you are requires you have to look deeper than the societal expectations that you have likely worked so hard to earn, like where you went to college, your net worth, or how many exits you’ve had. Instead, you must come face to face with what has shaped you over the course of your life, how those things have served you over time, and which aspects are still alive and well your automatic thoughts, patterned feelings, and hard-wired actions. Look at your lived experiences and the growing edges that you’ve come up against over the course of your life. It’s the relationship models and personality types you gravitate toward, how you culturally identify in these ever-evolving social constructs, and the things that either perfectly trigger or perfectly inspire you. And yes, the map of your inner landscape probably has a few things to do with your upbringing.
Take ambition, for example. Does that fire in your belly ignite anytime someone tells you that your idea is impossible? If so, my guess is that you weren’t born that way. In all likelihood, maybe you were the youngest and your siblings often made you feel like your capability was limited. Or perhaps you grew up with a single mom who you watched sacrifice everything to give you a better opportunity and that’s what drives you to take on the world.
Yes, some of this is temperament, but mostly this is nurture, not nature. And if you think you were just born this way, then I encourage you to keep peeling back the layers of your life.
It’s safe to say you know a lot about yourself already, but deep self-knowledge is in understanding who and why you became the person you are today. This is your true self. We call this authenticity. And for the stuff you don’t know about yourself yet—and trust me there’s plenty—there are many ways to find your blind spots. But ultimately, it starts with the journey of looking inward. Only you can be the expert of you.
Then, who do you want to be?
It’s very likely that you have a better idea of who you want to be than you know who you are–that inner landscape. That true self. That’s because it’s far less painful to look to external models of others than it is to look at yourself. On the other hand, daring to dream can sometimes be just as terrifying.
Some call it legacy, some call it your purpose, others call it your fullest potential. Identifying who you want to be is not an image or a destination but rather an evolutionary process—the process of becoming your future self and the why that drives that vision.
Now, this is where things can get a little sticky.
Asking yourself who you want to be isn’t an invitation to look outward at others, although it’s human nature to feel that impulse. It’s not asking, who do you want to be like? If you do that, it will inevitably result in a fragmented self — pieced together by characteristics and behaviors you’ve borrowed from others. As we know, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.
Instead, this question is asking, what could an evolved version of yourself look like? What does that future version want to do? How do you communicate? What do you feel? How do you spend your time? What does that evolved version experience that today’s, authentic version of you doesn’t?
Is it money or fame? A successful exit? Maybe it’s a relationship, a new house? Perhaps you want to be more patient or make your parents proud. Maybe it’s decision-making power and authority.
Once you start getting to some of those answers, then we can start to peel back the layers and ask the “why” driving that vision.
Maybe instead of the perfect house it’s actually a feeling of safety and security that you didn’t grow up with. Perhaps in your pursuit of wealth you’re actually seeking freedom and control over your time. Maybe instead of fame it’s that you just want to finally feel a sense of acceptance and belonging–like you’re finally enough. Behind every material desire there is often a psychological and existential reason.
Ultimately, identifying who you want to be is an exercise in design—your uninhibited, limitless design of you who can become. It’s a process that uncovers what you really value and asks you to think about how you want to live your life with the finite time you have left. It should also surface your unique ability, illuminating the aspects of you that you’re most proud of, because those are the parts that you want to remain the same in every future state.
Now, how do you show up everyday, in every moment?
In business, as in life, there is more that is outside of your control than you probably feel comfortable admitting. Markets change, customers pivot, culture cycles through trends and group think. Even teams and support systems around you can move on. Despite your best efforts to structure and influence outcomes, the only thing that you can actually control is how you show up in every single present moment – not the past, and certainly not the future.
This is the cornerstone of Congruent Leadership.
Have you ever watched a leader say one thing but do another? Or perhaps you’ve experienced that feeling where what you believe on the inside didn’t quite match what you did on the outside. Maybe it looked like losing your temper with a direct report when you pride yourself on patience, or making a decision to keep harsh investor feedback from the team when you intentionally preach transparency. Whether you’re a repeat offender or have been guilty of this once or twice before, there is a lot that serves or stands in the way of your congruence, and behavior is always the culprit.
In any given moment, you have the opportunity to act (or react) in a way that either aligns or doesn’t to the perception you hold of yourself. In psychology, this is called cognitive dissonance when a person’s behavior and actions are in conflict with their thoughts or beliefs. In business, this often shows up when a leader’s actions or decisions contradict their values or expectations they’ve set for others. And it’s this incongruence that can cost a company everything.
So, how do you know when you’ve reached congruence?
I hate to break it to you, but you won’t like the answer. When it comes to congruence, you’ll know when you feel it. It will feel effortless, organic, and clean of any noise and all tension. It’s the ultimate flow state of leadership. And while it might look a little different from one leader to the next, it will feel the same for everyone. The feedback from others around you will be positive. You’ll feel inspired to keep finding your growing edge. And yes, the business results will be there too. This isn’t to say that incongruence can’t drive business results (many have), but at what cost?
Congruent Leadership is so much more than good leadership–it’s effective and compounding. It’s a leadership style that is as unique to you as your own fingerprint, and it’s the new standard for success.
We’re obsessed with helping you grow and we love feedback. Leave a comment below, DM us or reach out anytime at hello@congruentleadership.com or schedule a complimentary intro call to explore our executive coaching offerings.
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