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Leading while developing an authentic relationship

By Bishop M. Christopher Wilson | The News Herald

Published: October 17, 2008

One of the most difficult tasks any leader will have to learn is how to gain and maintain what I call authentic relationships.
An authentic relationship is a key component in being a leader who has the ability to motivate people to action. When we as leaders desire to move our people in a certain direction, an authentic relationship is foundational.
Any time an authentic relationship is not present, manipulation is a strong possibility. We unconsciously treat people according to the mental identities we have created about the individuals based on past interactions.
One reason we have created these fictional images for ourselves is because many of us have a natural tendency to be people pleasers. If you're a person who is bent on pleasing others, be ready to have many fictional roles that you have to play at any given time, depending on whose presence you're in. We then unconsciously push these fictional labels off onto others. As long as we see others and ourselves this way, an authentic relationship is not possible.
Leaders have to begin the process of forming authentic relationships by first removing our own fictional definitions of others:
- Father
- Mother
- Pastor
- Republican
- Democrat
- President
- Member
- Employee
- Etc.
When we read the list above we can identify with one or more of these functions. The problem starts when you fail to understand the difference in your function and who you really are. The authentic you has nothing to do with the functions you fulfill or labels you have been given or given yourself. It is also has nothing to do with what degrees, titles or positions you may hold.
An authentic relationship with others can only be possible when we as leaders communicate absent of identification with the functions we fulfill.
- If I can only see myself as a father, who I am I when my kids are grown?
- If I can only see myself as a pastor, who I am I when I can no long fulfill the duties of a pastor?
We need to have a clear understanding that we are not our functions or what we possess, accomplish or fail at in life. Work can be stressful enough without tying your personal worth and value to it. You may fail at many things in life, but you only become a failure when you cannot separate your identity from your results. And results are truly relative. The thing that will matter in the eyes of God is motive.
During the 2008 Olympics I watched as the world's fastest man lost his title to a much younger athlete. I could not help but think, "If he has allowed himself to become totally identified with the title 'world's fastest man' then you can believe over the next few months he will undergo some major identity crisis."
When we have removed all of our mental labels we not only see ourselves clearly, we can then see others void of our judgmental and critical predetermined notions.
Not only do we do this with people, we do it to things. The moment we look at a rose and mentally call it a rose we lose the beauty in the identity of the name. If you are to ever see the true beauty in nature and in people you have to learn to see without labels.
You don't need a conceptual definition to give you a sense of self. We have to learn to be who we are whether we have a title or not. The people who make the best leaders are the people who know who they are before they obtain a position. These are the people who only meet other people, not their labels. These people meet people, not employees, parishioners, patients, subordinates or possible enemies. They simply see people for the individuals they are.
As leaders who desire to create authentic relationships, we have to make a commitment to see people and not to concentrate on the many labels that we could attach to them — he's black, she's white, they're poor, they have money. All that is irrelevant. We have to desire to see people for who they are and the character they possess.