Post by Rebecca Colwell

The first rule of being cool is that you can’t try too hard to be cool. Tell that to younger me (on the left). Turns out, the same thing applies to authentic leadership. A few things I've figured out along the way: - The harder you try to be authentic, the less authentic you actually become. The moment you start performing it, it's gone. - Authenticity and ego cannot coexist. You can't "be real" while quietly filtering every interaction to protect your image. One of them has to go. - It shows up best in the uncomfortable moments. Admitting you don't know the answer in a room full of people who assume you should. Laughing at yourself for a genuinely dumb mistake. Letting your actual personality come through instead of sounding like every other executive on LinkedIn. Yes, sometimes it feels a little cheesy. That's fine. You lean into it anyway. That's kind of the whole point.