Chasing Unicorns... Authentic Leadership

Last week I received my secret Santa gift from a mysterious genius at the Centre for Mental Health. Once I had stopped smiling it set off some thoughts about identity which I thought I would share with my mates. Audre Lorde famously said, ‘If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive’. Reading this as a younger woman I remember thinking about how being ‘myself’ threw up all sorts of challenges, but Audre’s work helped me realise that the consequences I would face being someone or something else would be catastrophic.

This kind, thoughtful and funny gesture means a huge amount to me, for so many years I?have felt like the ‘outsider’, when you think about what a Chief Executive looks like, I don’t think it’s me who pops into your mind. Indeed, I have been told this so many times by loads of folk. I have told stories in other pieces I have written of the times people have audibly gasped when they find out what I do, one bloke even laughing when I told him I was CEO of the Centre thinking I was joking (there have been profoundly worse incidences most of which I laugh about now but still won’t share). As a working class, tattooed, pierced, fat woman I have had my share of discrimination, you can imagine it can’t you. There have been times in my career when I have felt compelled to ‘manage’ all these things, in other words, hide them, only to discover after much torment that there is only so much one can hide.

I remember having a conversation with the governor of Holloway Prison in 2003, he wondered why I didn’t wear suits or formal dress to work. Edd was a lovely man and so this wasn’t a castigation, he was curious, I was an oddity to him, but he liked me, and we could talk. As a manager it was wholly unheard of to turn up in a pink tie dye t shirt and trainers. I look back and I know that a big part of this was defiance, a way of somehow holding back from ‘the system’, a rebellion. There were consequences though, people didn’t take me seriously and it often took some persuasion before I was regarded with respect and a recognition that I knew my stuff. Feeling vulnerable and dejected I would explore what it was like to be one of them, I would buy a suit, wear less jewellery, practice saying my t’s and try and be less loud. Then I would remember that my hips aren’t made for suits and that without my piercings I look like a potato and frankly of course I am loud, I am the oldest child, an Aries with serious hearing issues, my attempts at ‘normalisation’ always failed miserably.

No matter how many suits I wore or tried to wear, I would never meet those traditional expectations, and for a long time I felt like there was a limit to how far I could go, the glass ceiling being exceptionally low. It was the subject of many executive coaching sessions, I felt like I had to settle something with myself. There have been some marvellous surprises too, I remember when the late great Lady Elizabeth Vallance told me a year after I was appointed to my current role (during a conversation about female leadership), that she had seen the tattoos I had tried to hide at interview and noticed that I had a broad north London accent and in her words she thought I was ‘a gloriously big beautiful woman with a firm handshake’, she said she never doubted my ability for a minute, I loved her for that.

I guess the point of this piece is to tell people that your authentic self is good enough, it really is. Polly Neate always says 'know yourself and be yourself', a mantra I have loved since hearing it. After years of grappling with this sense of true self, people react negatively towards me less and less now. Holding firm to who I am more often than not has enabled me to grow in role and create networks and a reputation for being tough on the mission, purpose driven and ambitious for impact. There is another worry of course attached to authenticity, the feeling of not being liked for who you are, sadly authenticity and popularity are not always synonymous and so whilst this still bothers me that is a subject for another day.

This beautiful gift given by someone who I still can’t name represents how my version of authentic leadership has evolved (they probably had no idea it would have such a profound impact – or maybe they did – who knows), I have been seen for who I am and it’s a huge relief, there’s no shame in it either, instead I am rejoicing in the win. My parents brought me up specifically not to be ‘like everyone else’, and so thanks to them and my inability to acquiesce and comply with those unwritten social leadership rules and sometimes even the written ones, I think its job done. There's no turning back now, and so a pole dancing unicorn it is, and my name is Sarah.

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