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LEADERSHIPAUTHENTICITYReal LeadershipIt’s still a performing art.by Warren Bennistion that magnetic, charismatic leadersarouse in us—causing us to caredeeply about them. Without needingto share the same physical space, theyinduce in us a response that normallyrequires powerful pheromones.Both great actors and great leadersmake the audience part of the performance.They engage us. The audienceis essential to, perhaps even determinativeof, a great performance. Similarly,no matter how soaring his or heragenda, leaders are successful only tothe extent that their followers sharethat vision. Leadership is a transactionbetween leader and follower andalways involves reciprocity.Shakespeare, of course, has somethingto say on this point. In “HenryIV, Part I,” we encounter Glendower,trying to impress Hotspur. “I can callspirits from the vasty deep,” Glendowerboasts. And Hotspur replies: “Why socan I, or so can any man, but will theycome when you do call for them?”Genuine leadership requires more thanputting on the trappings of power. Itrequires the ability, as Miller observes,“to find the magnetic core that willdraw together a fragmented public.”Leaders create community in partby using skillfully brandished pluralpersonal pronouns, as Churchill predicted,“This will be our finest hour.”On the question of whether leadersare born or made, I defer to Shakespeare.In Twelfth Night, Malvolio pronounces:“Some are born great, some achievegreatness, and some have greatnessthrust upon them.”What is misleading in this statementis the relative equality given tothese three paths to greatness. Few areborn leaders—although we tend torewrite the biographies of the greatafter the fact in ways that suggest theyLEADERSHIP IS A ROLE,a part that a personplays. Not surprisingly,the person who seems to have knownthe most about leadership was a manof the theater. William Shakespearewas acutely aware of the leader asactor, both in the sense of a personwho acts—or is expected to act—andin the sense of a performer on stage.Shakespeare knew that a play aboutpower—its achievement, use and misuse,its loss, and how it changes people—captivates an audience. Many of hisplays address the rise and fall of leaders.Other ancient playwrights knewintuitively that audiences are rivetedby plays about legitimacy, succession,and other leadership matters. The powerthat leaders have over us means thattheir lives are inextricably linked withour own. Some men may be islands,but no leader is. Palpable in ancientGreece and Elizabethan England, thelink between leadership and performanceis even more obvious today.When Franklin Delano Rooseveltfirst met Orson Welles, the Presidentsaid: “Mr. Welles, you are the greatestactor in America.” “Oh, no, Mr.President,” Welles replied. “You are.”Both men were masters of radio—Roosevelt paternalistically reassuredthe nation during his weekly FiresideChats; Welles scared the nation out ofits wits with his fictitious story of aMartian invasion in the War of the Worldsbroadcast. Both men used theatricaldress and props—Welles, his rakishhats, FDR, his signature cape and cigaretteholder—to create dashing images.Playwright Arthur Miller talksabout the star quality of great actors.When he saw Marlon Brando on stagefor the first time, Brando made hisentrance and said nothing for severalminutes. The audience was mesmerized.“Without a word spoken, thisactor opened in the audience a rangeof emotional possibilities. Brando hadnot asked the audience to merely lovehim; that is only charm. He had madethem wish that he would deign tolove them. That is a star. Onstage oroff, that is power.” Miller homes in onthe intensity and intimacy of the emowerefound in a basket on the doorstepof history, fully formed. Harry Trumanwas once regarded as little more thana smalltime politician who got lucky.FDR never fully confided in him—andTruman was so ill-regarded that Washingtonwags joked: “To err is Truman.”Most leaders acquire greatness, as aresult of having a role requiring greatnessthrust upon them. Crisis often playsa role in forming leaders. Look at thestature and number of leaders forgedin the revolution that produced theUnited States—Washington, Jefferson,Adams, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton.“These are the hard times in which agenius would wish to live,” AbigailAdams wrote Jefferson in 1790. “Greatnecessities call forth great leaders.”I see that role and talent sometimesconverge to produce greatness andthat life often pulls these leadershipqualities out of us. Indeed, many peoplewho never become leaders possessthe qualities necessary for leadership,but life never presents them with theroles that pull greatness out of them.Acting ability is an aspect of leadershipin every arena—from the playgroundto the board room—but it iskey in politics, where the only contactmost people have with the candidateor office holder is mediated. No wonderleaders call in experts to vet thecolor and cut of their suits and practicetheir speeches. For modern leaders, notto do so would be foolish. The Greekand Roman arts of rhetoric—and otherdramatic techniques—still matter.Some years ago, I interviewed thedistinguished director, the late SydneyPollack. In talking about his first directorialexperience, he said that he hadno idea how to direct a film, so he fellback on skills he had developed as anactor and acted like a director. He costumedhimself as a director and surroundedhimself with the right props.This raises a crucial question aboutleadership and acting. Can a leader beauthentic, or do the masks of commandforce the leader to be something otherthan his or her true self? Can a leaderboth act and be real? When Pollack wasacting as if he was a director, was he fakingit? No, he was a real director, evenif in his own mind he was only acting.The feeling of not being up to the job—that the role is too big for one personto play—is an emotion that all leadersfeel. It’s evidence that the role is worthtaking on. By dressing and acting the part,the nascent director in Pollack made therequisite leap into the unknown, boldlyaccepting the risk of failure.Adaptive capacity is the single mostLeadership Excellence June 2009 3
important attribute in determining whowill become a leader—and it is thedefining characteristic of great actors.Great actors master the skill of empathy—being able to project yourself into theskin of another. FDR and Churchillseemed to know our fears better thanwe did and address them even beforewe had fully articulated them.Actors have a sense of alternativeselves. They know, as Shakespearewrote, “that each man in his time playsmany parts.” They have an image ofthemselves as malleable, a consciousnessof their potential for change. Thissense that they can inhabit roles otherthan the one most think of as self isessential to leadership as well. Likestage performers, leaders can act as if,without losing track of who they are.Shakespeare showed his audience aleader in the midst of doing one thingwhile thinking another. Transparencyis a luxury that not every leader canafford. I am not arguing for executiveduplicity—we have seen far too muchscheming and double-dealing in recentyears—but acknowledging the dilemmafaced by all leaders: “Heavy liesthe head that wears the crown.”Leaders are routinely required to keepsecrets and to balance conflicting values,such as the public’s right to knowand the need for national security. Cana leader be less than forthcoming andstill be real? Is a lack of candor sometimesjustified? Is even deceit justifiedif it saves human lives? Does that qualifyas one of Plato’s Noble Truths?Leaders must grapple with such hardquestions. In making decisions, they mustsometimes improvise, as they’re forcedinto situations in which character isnot a straight-forward matter of conformityto an accepted code. Instead,as William James proposes, the way todetermine a person’s character “wouldbe to seek the mental or moral attitudein which, when it came upon him, hefelt himself most deeply and intensivelyactive and alive. At such moments, avoice inside speaks and says, ‘This isthe real me.’” The ability to hear thatvoice and act upon it may be the onlykind of authenticity a leader needs.Great leaders create and sell us on avision. Leadership is not just a performingart, it may be the greatest performingart of all—the only one thatcreates institutions that can endurelong after the stars who envisionedthem have left the theater.LEWarren Bennis, Professor at University of Southern California,is author of the 20 th anniversary edition of On Becoming a Leaderand The Essential Bennis (Jossey-Bass). Visit www.USC.edu.ACTION: Bolster your authenticity.LEADERSHIPAUTHENTICITYYes, Get RealBut what is real?by Glenn CloseAFTER READING (ANDre-reading) Warren’sarticle on Leadership as aPerforming Art, one thing keeps stickingin my actor’s brain. It’s this: Likeall great actors, great leaders are skilledcraftsmen; and, like actors, they usetheir craft to actively engage whateveraudience they are playing to. They cansense who their audience is and, withthem, set up a palpable energy exchange.A great leader’s charisma, like a greatactor’s, makes us all into believers. Butwhere does the truth lie between thepersonas that a leader presents to usand the one who we are never privyto—except, of course, in the raremoments when a microphone picks upsomething not intended for our ears ora camera catches an unguarded,telling look. Howdo we know—in this worldof paid political handlers,polls, and focus groups—what is artifice and what isauthentic? Can a leader betruly great if the face he presentsto the public is notwho he really is? And, doesit matter?An actor doesn’t have to worryabout that because he knows when heis playing a character and when he isnot. When he leaves the set or exits thestage, his job is done.I take off my costume, wipe themake-up off my face, put my wig backon its stand, put on my jeans and gohome, leaving the character behind.And I have been lucky enough toplay many different characters. Iwould like to think that I could be anyoneI am asked to be. That is my craft.The irony is that great acting is allabout truth—even though one couldsay that the actor is just pretending. Itis impossible to grab the heart of anaudience and give them an unforgettable,emotional experience unless theperformance is based on truth.An actor has no other agenda but tobe truthful, and that truth is all aboutfinding a point of non-judgmental,common humanity with the characterto be portrayed; a common humanitybetween an imagined character and avery real actor. When that point isfound, it enables the actor to infuse hisperformance with an authenticity thatcomes from self-knowledge.Such authenticity has a subliminalresonance with the audience, compellingthem to care, and to pay attention.It enables them relate to thecharacter, intellectually and emotionally,giving them an experience that isreal and unforgettable.As Kevin Kline says in HaroldGuskin’s wonderful book, How to StopActing, “Good acting is when it is atruth that is intellectually and absolutelyinspired—something personaland transcendent that moves you. It istruth that is important to you—thetruth that is personal in a profoundway.” Good acting conveys truth.So, even though an actor is usuallynot at all like the character he playsand leaves the character behind at theend of the day, without innate integrity,without a deeply informed understandingof human behavior, withoutan authentic ability to empathize, thatactor would not move his audienceand would not be considered great.I am certainly not anexpert on great leadership, orgreat acting, but after thinkingabout it, I suppose greatleadership really is no differentthan great acting—exceptthat a great leader can’t shedan imagined persona at theend of the day or when thedoor to his limo is closed.And, therefore, who he is inpublic should not differ from who he isprivately—if he is truly great.And yes, it does matter—he must beauthentic in his integrity, in his understandingof, his connection to, and hisempathy with the people he leads.Otherwise, acting (or leading) isimpossible. If he is not authentic, therewill always be that unexpected livemicrophone or that unguardedmoment of scary spontaneity.As they say, it’s impossible to foolall the people, all of the time. We’vegrown cynical about our leaders. Weare now waiting to be fooled.I guess that is why great leaders donot come our way very often; but thenagain, neither do great actors. Whenthey do, we all know it; but then again,maybe it’s all pretend.LEGlenn Close, contributor to The Essential Bennis, is an actorand singer of stage and screen. nominated five times for anOscar, and won three Tonys, an Obie, two Emmys, two GoldenGlobes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Call 444-288-2000.ACTION: Infuse authenticity into your leadership.4 June 2009 Leadership Excellence
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