In 2007, my husband, then boyfriend, told me that I needed to get a hobby. I was loafing around the house and didn’t have an outlet. I can’t remember how I took his demand, but I probably wasn’t the most receptive to being told that I needed to change. Anyway, I was outside having a cigarette that evening and I heard the rumble of a piston-engine aircraft approach. We lived a few blocks from a community airport at the time. I realized what I wanted to do: learn to fly. So, I did. I went to the airport, signed up for my first lesson, ground school, and ordered a headset and books. Over the next year, I learned the ins and outs of flying. In just under a year, I had my private pilot’s license.
Part of being a pilot is staying healthy and smoking is not compatible with staying healthy. Pilots have to carry evidence that they are fit to fly, we do this by carrying our medical card. The medical card is issued every 6 months, year, or three years, depending on your license. Since I wasn’t flying commercially or for an airline, I only needed the once every three-year physical, a Class 3. The first time I went for a medical, it went fine. I was a little overweight and had slightly elevated blood pressure, but otherwise, I was healthy. Three years later, for my first renewal, I barely passed. My blood pressure nearly disqualified me, I had put on 20 pounds, and was barely fit to fly. I told myself I’d do better and get healthier. But, three years later, I hadn’t. I went to my regular doctor, for flight physicals we have to go to a Designated Medical Examiner, a specially trained and FAA licensed physician. I asked my regular doctor, who used to do flight physicals, to give me a once over. He told me that I would fail. My blood pressure was too high, I was obese, and he told me it wasn’t worth going because not getting it is less bad than failing. I was shocked and scared and I lit up another cigarette. At this point, I was smoking more than a pack-a-day. Some days, especially when we were drinking, I could smoke two packs.
Being told that I could, effectively, lose my pilots license over my health was shocking to me. I was 29, I was young, I couldn’t be unhealthy. I, objectively, was. This disconfirmation of my perceptions of my own health was amazingly shocking. I asked the doctor what I should do and he told me to start by losing some weight, maybe 20 or 30 pounds. I committed to that. Authentic leadership considers critical life events to be those that are major enough to change people’s lives (Northouse, 2016). Critical life events serve as the stepping off point, the catalyst, for change (Northouse, 2016). Within six months, I had lost 70 pounds and my blood pressure was coming back down under control. I had cut my smoking back to less than a pack-a-day and passed my flight physical. My doctor, jokingly but seriously, told me that I made a critical mistake. I asked what he meant, he told me that I showed him that I had self-discipline, so now I didn’t have an excuse to not quit smoking.
The power of this event didn’t stop with overcoming the adversity of getting my medical back, it kept going. In October of that year, 2013, my blood pressure started creeping back up. I was running every day, eating healthy, and, while still smoking, doing it less. I thought, maybe, that my mindset had something to do with it. I could feel that stomach-sinking sensation right before I hit the start button on my monitor, when you feel that, your blood pressure spikes. Anyway, I called a therapist’s office around the corner from my office and booked an appointment. I only wanted to talk about my blood pressure and to learn some calming techniques so that I could overcome this white-coat syndrome I had. The therapist, upon our first interaction, knew there was more than just the blood pressure going on. Besides losing weight and getting my medical back, I was passive in my life. I would get upset when things that I didn’t like happened, but I would insist that I didn’t have any control over it. I was motivated by making money and showing off that success. In fairness, I was emulating the behaviors of role models in my life like my bosses, coworkers, and, to some extent, my parents.
Authentic leadership combines positive psychological characteristics, moral reasoning, and critical life events as the precursors for its four key components: self-awareness, internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency (Northouse, 2016). I had a critical life event and I built some confidence and learned resilience, two of the positive psychological characteristics along the way (Northouse, 2016). In therapy, I came to discover that, while I learned to express negativity and pessimism, thinking it was a way of sounding smarter, I actually was quite optimistic and hopeful. I had a dissonance in my thinking that stopped me from expressing optimism and hope. Hope and optimism are the other two psychological factors authentic leadership requires (Northouse, 2016).
My therapist quickly discovered that I have strong opinions about things. I’ve learned to back off of them when they aren’t morally effective. I have a strong sense of right and wrong and when I think something is morally questionable, you’ll know because I’ll tell you. My morality has two strong roots: my parents, they were both public servants and taught me to privilege others before me, and my coming out at 16 as the only gay kid in a high school of 2,400. I was the victim of bullying nearly every day, from verbal insults to physical aggression, from unspoken out-grouping to expressed ostracization. I get very upset if I think someone is being victimized. It took me several years to really understand this, to get why I got so upset about these things, and to learn to articulate my feelings succinctly and rationally. Moral reasoning is the capacity leaders have to promote justice, to transcend individual interests, and to align followers to common goals (Northouse, 2016). The therapy that followed this critical life incident has helped me hone and shape my moral reasoning.
The therapy that followed this critical life incident didn’t stop with hope and optimism and moral reasoning, it kept going. I’ve learned to become more self-aware. Self-awareness is our insight into ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, and our impact on others (Northouse, 2016). I used to think that events happened to me, that I was at the mercy of a stage of actors that controlled my life. That, no matter my actions, I was the victim. It took me a while, but I eventually came to agree that we are often the biggest impacts on the situations we experience. Once I learned how I impact situations, it was easier to see when I was letting the situation impact me. I would often regret over or under-reacting to stimulus. For example, I would often have heated exchanges about business decisions with our company’s owners but look past them doing questionable things, like making hourly staff take paid time off for company closed days while not requiring the same of salaried staff. I would listen to their arguments about business expense and complexity and accept their justifications.
Internalized moral processing and balanced processing are features of authentic leadership; the former refers to using our own moral standards for decision-making and the latter to understanding others perspectives and including them in our decision-making (Northouse, 2016). Effectively, authentic leaders welcome the opinions of others and weigh them against their own moral compass. I have strong internal moral processing, I know my rights from my wrongs and I’ve learned to not use rationalization as justification. Listening to others, that’s taken a while and remains a challenge, occasionally, for me. I used to think that being right or wrong was a measure of a person’s character and internalized that. A person’s value, then, was based on how correct they were. I would feel threatened by dissenting opinions and would get defensive, sometimes combative. People didn’t like me very much, rightfully so, I was a know-it-all jerk. The better part of three years with my therapist was highly focused on listening to others. I’ve come to value listening to other’s opinions, I see the beauty of challenging my own perception.
Learning to be okay with being wrong, accepting that other’s opinions could be correct, has made me more humble. That humility has allowed me to openly discuss and share my vulnerabilities. Relational transparency is a feature of authentic leadership and it describes a self-regulated open and honest presentation of our true selves to others (Northouse, 2016). Sometimes, like maybe in this post, I overshare. I need to keep working on the self-regulation part. But I do love sharing exactly who I am with the world.
I was a different person before I was told I had to lose weight to keep something I loved. That critical incident forced me to make changes, to accept help, and to keep growing. These critical events are catalyzing, sparking changes that have long term impacts. I didn’t stop changing when I lost weight and accomplished my goal. I didn’t stop when I quit smoking in April 2014. This one incident has sparked for me so much: we moved out of the suburbs and into the city, I went back to college, I’ve run five marathons and countless half-marathons, I’ve taken up rowing and am learning how to coxswain. Had this not happened, I do not know what my life would look like? Would I still be smoking? Would I still be a ticking-time-bomb, both emotionally and physiologically?
Authentic leadership has three primary approaches: interpersonal, intrapersonal, and developmental (PSU WC, 2019, L. 12). The developmental perspective includes the other two approaches, noting that authentic leaders must have certain traits but that skills can be built, this growth occurs when a person is moved outside their comfort zone, in a critical life incident (PSU WC, 2019, L. 12). I think that I have lived through the developmental approach over the last six years. I’ve gone from being a toxic, unhealthy, unhappy person, to a gregarious, friendly, thoughtful leader.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). Lesson 12: Authentic leadership. PSYCH485: Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/su19/2195min-5376/content/12_lesson/printlesson.html
Shawna Lee Pires says
It seems that you have definitely made significant strides in bettering not only your life through a healthier lifestyle but also recognizing those life events that had brought out lesser desired aspects of a leader and a follower. I can absolutely see how the thought of losing your pilots license would be a life-changing event that would make you look inward and begin to examine what’s going on and how to change it for the better. I can somewhat relate in that I lived a fairly unhealthy lifestyle during my first few years in the Marine Corps that involved a lot of alcohol and cigarettes. I joined the Marine Corps after going to college for three years because I had a tendency to drink my problems away, after two of my good friends were murdered. I thought this would help me get it together and server a purpose after it was not long after 9/11 and I wanted to do something for the country. Well I joined only to have the drinking continue, if not get worse. I would drink and smoke and go out all night but was still able to PT in the morning which was more often than not, running. I did my job and did it well, but I did have a few run-ins with leaders, often brought on by drinking. Then my deployment rotations started where I was deploying every year for 7 months at a time, so my a few months back in the states were spent partying.
After my 2010 deployment, my life changed. I got engaged and a few months later found out I was having a baby. I remember I had gone to work, hungover with my usual cigarette on the way and mentioned to a friend that I hadn’t been feeling well and had been nauseous a lot. I figured it was from all of the drinking as we were in our post-deployment cycle, and I knew we would be preparing to go out again at the end of the year. She mentioned I should take a pregnancy test and I laughed, but I did and from that moment everything changed. I stopped smoking and drinking that day and somehow a light went off in my head that also realized the Marine Corps wasn’t just my job but was my career as I would be in it for the twenty years. From that point on I knew as a leader, I had to conduct myself in a manner my Marines would want to emulate. I had been promoted to Staff Sergeant and had more responsibilities as well as the understanding that if I messed up and got in trouble for drinking that would ruin my career.
You discuss the four key components with the first being self-awareness. Northouse (2016) defines self-awareness as an individual understanding themselves, which includes their strengths and weaknesses (pg. 202). I think it’s safe to say you saw your weaknesses through your health situation and expressing negativity and pessimism. Similarly, I knew that my lifestyle was not conducive to not only my child but also my ability to be a leader and set the example for my Marines. I hadn’t smoked since my pregnancy and I definitely do not drink as I used to, knowing my career would be at risk. This change allowed me to truly evaluate who I was as a leader, as a Marine and as a person.
The second component you discuss was having internalized moral perspective. I think for me personally I struggled with this. I didn’t really deal with the negative aspects of life very well and turned to alcohol which had a tendency to bring out a hidden angry side of me. You mention that people didn’t like you because of your defensive posture when you felt threatened. I was well liked at work and got along well with most people and then they would come out with me and often times the next morning find myself answering questions about why I got so angry and tried to start a fight with them. So, it initially seemed as though I did not let others opinions and pressures bother me, when in fact I just bottled it up and took out my frustrations with alcohol. Once I changed my drinking habits it allowed me to set a moral standard for myself that was consistent with the values that the Marine Corps holds all Marines to (Northouse, 2016, pg. 203).
I think rational transparency is a very important part of leadership in general. Being truthful about who you are and where you came from allows followers to look inward and maybe begin to recognize their strengths and weaknesses. Like you, I am open with my struggles because I think they make me who I am. I see a lot of Marines struggle with things, to include alcohol, and my ability to be transparent in my struggles allows them to see that you can work past that and be the leader you want and are able to be.
I enjoyed your post on authentic leadership. I think you really capture the components and characteristics that define an authentic leader. It’s always nice to see how people develop and progress in life and factors that make them who they are as people and leaders.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership theory and practice (7th ed). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2019). Lesson 12: Authentic leadership. PSYCH485: Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved June 23, 2019, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/canvas/su19/2195min-5376/content/12_lesson/printlesson.html