#6- Connection before direction: Lead from the heart and soul

Let me ask you: how do you show up every day, not only for yourself, but for the people around you? While this is a question many of us consider, I think many of us think of the why before the how. In reality, the how is what shapes our why. Let me explain my reasoning on this…

Is the glass half empty or half full?

Are you buried, or are you planted?

Is it an alarm clock you face every day, or is it an opportunity clock?

Hopefully you have an open mind to see where I’m going with this. This week is about authentic leadership and how we show up as our most real, yet vulnerable selves. Simply put, when you are real with yourself and the way that you lead internally, then you can truly be real for those around you and help them achieve their goals.

My personal values, connection, perspective, and showing up for others, directly influence how I make decisions and interact with people both at work and in school. I try to lead with people first, not position, and that starts with how I choose to show up every day.

Let’s be real, life is not easy. Each day is a new opportunity to navigate something new in a world that is changing by the minute. As much as this new world of social media and technology shows us the “authentic” side of life, many times it does not. The grit, the adversity, and the hard work that go into the journey of life can differ from eye to eye. What baffles me is that many do not realize that we don’t get to take “things” away from this place when we leave, and after about five minutes, the shiny material objects prove to be nothing more than a means to an end. What really matters above all is the people. It’s the people you wake up to at home, the people you experience traffic with every morning, the people who hold the door open, and especially the ones willing to lend an ear and listen. We all come in with nothing and leave with nothing, but what impact are you leaving that might remain after your time? How are you doing it? How can I positively affect those around me? How can I learn from their perspective to help shape mine? These are the questions that leaders should be asking.

In my eyes, it’s a choice every day to live life with a can-do mindset and a tenacious attitude, to show up every day, just like seeing the glass half full or half empty. At the root of this is perspective. One of the large elements that makes an authentic leader “real” is their ability to see more than just one perspective. Asking, “How can I show up as myself, for others in the best way possible?” before “Why am I showing up for these people?” You can feel the mood shift when reading these questions.

As for life and where I can relate, it’s always best to see the cup half full rather than half empty in a hospitality setting. And it’s so easy to see it half empty. To reiterate myself from Blog #1, it’s unique to be human. We all experience a variety of emotions and differ from soul to soul in how we show up and what drives us. One of the many beauties of life is being able to connect over something as simple as making someone else’s day better. And that’s where hospitality comes in. There are definitely days in this industry (depending on the type of business) that can be filled with mental battles and emotional capacity overload. Being authentic in this space, with as many adversities as there may be, does prove a point though. There are going to be ebbs and flows when it comes to challenges with authenticity, but I believe the root of it all is having an open mind to perspective change at any given time and learning from that perspective. At the same time, authenticity can be challenging in HTM settings because we are often expected to “perform” for guests regardless of how we are actually feeling. That emotional labor can make it difficult to always show up as your true self, which is why being grounded in your values matters even more.

To finish, I’d like to highlight someone in my life recently who has shown up authentically and made a real impact on me. One of the managers where I work has been the epitome of showing up in his real form, despite the adversities he has been through and the journey he has overcome in both his personal and professional life. This individual shows up authentically every day for those around him and, by simply checking in as a friend before a work shift, has gained the trust of not only me but others that I work with as well. Once this baseline trust was established, there was a level of comfortability in problem-solving and being able to approach him when an issue arose. Even if the issue directly stemmed from my own mishap, he never showed a diminishing feeling toward who I am or the work that I am doing. He also showed up with charisma and an excitement to improve and be progressive with our work every day, asking what can we do to be better than yesterday? This level of authenticity has opened my mind to the power of being real with your people, because they will be real with you.

As I come to a close on a chapter of academics and move into the professional world, there is one thing that will stick to my core that I will strive to be great at, and that is to just be you. To show up for others when it’s unexpected, to do the things that you wish people would do for you, and to never have an expectation in return. In this current environment, we can all get caught up in the rat race and think about the end of the road, but who really knows where that road is leading more than a week in advance?

One way I will practice authenticity as a graduating senior and future HTM professional is by intentionally building real relationships with the people I work with, before focusing on performance, so that trust is always the foundation of how I lead.

Anyways, my point with this reflection into the inner machinations of my imagination is that nothing is worse than regret, nothing is worse than doing something morally wrong, and nothing is worse than not doing it for yourself and the people around you. That’s an authentic leader.

Now that you are authentic, go be good!

SGH