Honoring your authenticity and values.
A lifelong commitment I have made to my clients and my work in general is to practice what I teach. It is the way of integrity. This does not mean I aim to be perfect, or that I am at any given time masterful, or “better than”—it means that I continuously work to behave in the ways I hope to inspire others. Often, conditions conspire to offer me tests of my resolve.
Of late, I have been working with the quality of courage and its many complex behaviors. One such behavior, “speaking truth to power,” seems to be at the heart of many development dilemmas.
As it turns out, it’s at the heart of mine.
For a bit of background—I donate blood regularly, and the technicians usually choose one particular vein in my left arm. They call it “small but mighty,” and it’s reliable. When I have blood drawn, my habit is to tell the clinician about this vein. Last week I was at a clinic for a routine medical procedure, and I showed the technician—I’ll call him Joe—that vein. Joe was unimpressed. He checked around and found one adjacent to it he liked better. I was a bit wary but still comfortable, and I took a breath and relaxed. Joe had no luck and “blew the vein,” as he called it, creating an immediate sizable bruise. He then decided to try my left hand. The same thing happened. With two large bruises, I was beginning to get anxious. Joe decided to get a colleague to try.
The second clinician began examining my right arm. I told him (as I had told Joe), “I donate blood regularly, and they always use a specific vein in my left arm.” He said, “Let me have a look!” and immediately agreed it was a good bet. He inserted the needle there and had success.
This incident did not cause any permanent harm. My bruises will heal. But the lesson can’t be missed. I did not speak truth to power and insist, respectfully, that Joe utilize the reliable vein—or get another technician to assess. And I have asked myself why. Of course, a medical professional is in a position of “power over” a patient. But Joe was very kind, not ego laden or intimidating. He had told me he was a retired firefighter. He was easy to talk to, so why did I hesitate to ask for what I knew was the right thing for me?
I must admit something, and this is part of the learning. In the weeks before the incident at the clinic, there were two others. While also not life-altering, they were significant, and I thought I had learned a lesson from each. One was a negotiation. The person who had something I wanted had power over me, or at least that is how I behaved. The other incident was a situation in which I allowed myself to be talked into doing something I didn’t want to do by a friend who held more energy than my exhausted state could stand up to.
Speaking truth to power takes many forms. You might not think of a salesperson or a persuasive friend as the subject of speaking truth to power. I had not. My previous (unexamined) mental model held it as speaking up to someone who literally commanded control—someone like a boss or a political leader who could choose to listen but had the final say. Yet we “make up” power dynamics, often unconsciously. We assign power where it does not need to reside, giving it away in the process.
I have the courage to transform this newly realized bad habit of mine. The question of why I do it in the first place is the starting point. It’s puzzling on the surface. I’m not a timid person. I’m not a “pleaser.” For the answer, I’m drawing on one of the other courage behaviors, “embracing authenticity.” When we speak truth to power, we take a risk. At the very least, we risk rapport. In some cases, we risk careers and livelihoods. If we do this, there must be something at stake—something of value. If I consider the things I am willing to take a risk for, they include my well-being and my values. Authenticity is at the core of that for me.
In all three instances I described previously, my well-being suffered from the choices I made. I teach self-compassion, yet I did not care for myself. I let others who thought they knew what was best for me decide. That is not authenticity, and it is not self-compassion.
What is the lesson here for you? If you ever do what I wrote about (and I bet you do), the process can go something like this: (Pick something of minor to moderate consequence to work through this process the first time or two.)
- Identify an action you took (or didn’t take) when you succumbed to someone else’s power. What were the consequences? What was the other person’s possible motive?
- Consider having made a different choice. What personal value would you have honored in doing so? How would you or someone else have been better served by this alternative choice?
If the choice you made in giving up your power was to make someone else happy, to respect their knowledge or authority, or in any way to put someone else’s needs before yours, consider whether that was an honoring of a core value (generosity, for example) or rather a lack of courageous authenticity. For me, I know I am a generous, giving person. I respect medical professionals and sales reps. And I love my friend. But the choices I described were not made from generosity, respect, or love. They were made in fleeting moments in which I discounted my own needs in the presence of unexamined power. Transformation requires reflection before its light can shine.
