Authenticity: 10 Favorite Quotes

 “When we are authentic, we set in motion events that compound themselves and lead to discovery and growth. In contrast, when we choose to lead a life characterized by prevent defenses, the choice we faced at 20 is there again at 30 and again at 40 and again at 50 and again at 60.“ 
—Barry Brownstein, "The Downside of the ‘Prevent Defense',"

The Systems Thinker, September 2003

“ ... authenticity can’t be cloned without turning it into ‘authenticity,’ and smart listeners can hear quotation marks a mile away.”

 —Lorraine Ali and David Gates 

Newsweek, March 11, 2002, p. 61.

“Remember the Kouzes-Posner First Law of Leadership? If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message. The observation that people most admire those leaders with clear and strong beliefs leads to the following corollary to our First Law: You can’t believe in the messenger if you don’t know what the messenger believes.”

—James Kouzes and Barry Posner 

The Leadership Challenge, Third Edition

“This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s.”

—Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

“To live with courage in any work or in any organization, we must know intimately the part of us that does not give a damn about the organization or the work. That knows how to live outside the law as well as within it.”

—David Whyte, Crossing the Unknown Sea

“Every person must follow his or her own process. No one else can know what is right for another. There is no goal in living our process, except to live it. Our processes can change. Our lives can change as we participate in the process. Our only requirement is to trust the process and live in faith.”

—Anne Wilson Schaef, Living in Process

“The punishment imposed on us for claiming our true self can never be worse than the punishment we impose on ourselves for failing to make that claim. And the converse is true as well: no reward anyone might give us could possibly be greater than the reward that comes from living by our own best lights.”

—Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

“You might not have recognized the power of authenticity, even if you have glimpsed it, because it tends not to draw attention to itself and it is not necessarily associated with high profile positions or titles. Authenticity doesn’t need that. Instead, the power of authenticity is quietly efficient and confidently effective.”

—G. Ross Lawford, The Quest for Authentic Power

“Authenticity means that managers mean what they say. Integrity means that they do what they say they will do, and for the reasons they originally stated. By linking intentions, words, and actions, authenticity and integrity connect the head and the heart.”

—Randall L. Englund, “Authentic Leadership,” LEVERAGE, No. 41

“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. That simple, that difficult.”
—Warren Bennis