Authority & Authenticity- Do you Extract or Elicit?

June 1, 2010

Zig Ziglar is a master. His stories, his humor and his excitement in his voice carry over you as he weaves his life lessons.

I watched him talk the other day. His short term memory is impaired so his daughter has to come up with him to keep him focused and on task. His stories were ones of how you can make change happen and be at the top of his game. His hands shook a little but the love he spoke with made us in the audience give him great latitude and great authority. He was authentic.

Then I saw Jim. He came out and in the first two sentences told the audience “we were stupid.” He ranted and raved and threw insults about as though they were candy at a parade. He proceeded to tell us we should treat all people as equals regardless of their race, religion or financial status. Then he proceeded to tells us that an “overweight Mexican Woman” in the back wasn’t being treated with respect by all the speakers. Hmm, do you see a duality here? His entire speech was riddled with lessons of what we should do and then in his stories you heard strong judgment of others in how he described them or imitated them. He was trying to extract authority. What he got was nervous laughter from people.

Both speakers had some solid messages. However one was wrapped so tightly in judgment that it was hard to peel that back to land on the message. It was also hard to take the message seriously because the “walk” didn’t follow the talk.

Zig Ziglar, on the other hand, raised all around him up and in return they raised him up and honored him.

So how does your team see you? Do they see you like Jim- a mixture of duality that is hard to digest? Or do they see you as Zig- someone that may falter but that you want to follow as you know they will look for the good in you?

May you go forth today and watch for your inaccuracies. Correct any words and actions that don’t match. Ask forgiveness if you realize you have had some duality going on.