Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change

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BRINGING YOUR WHOLE SELF TO WORK

Lessons in Authentic Engagement from Women Leaders

Laura Morgan Roberts

In the twenty-first-century U.S. business world, authenticity has become one of the highest virtues. A 2001 Ad Week poll asked adults to choose—from a list of positive qualities—what they would most like to be known for, and half the respondents said “being authentic” was the most desired personal quality, with “being intelligent” and “having a sense of humor” each drawing only 22 percent of the votes. The single most important trait that 61 percent of adults reported they would require in a lifelong companion was “authenticity”; “intelligence” was named in only 24 percent of responses. Capturing the quality of this phenomenon, Lionel Billing ...