Why Authentic Leadership Works: How to Be an Authentic Leader in a World That Rewards Conformity

Episode Summary

What does it really mean to be an authentic leader—and why is it so hard, especially for women and underrepresented professionals? In this inspiring episode of Better Than This, Meghan French Dunbar unpacks the power of authentic leadership through personal missteps, stories of transformation, and research-backed insights.

You’ll hear how Meghan’s six-month struggle with “professionalizing” her online brand led her back to her own playbook on authenticity—and how a chance encounter with a bold facilitator, Jocelyn McDougall, changed the course of her career and leadership style.

From the hidden costs of workplace assimilation to the burnout risks of masking your true self, Meghan explores why showing up authentically isn’t just good for your soul—it’s also good for business. You'll learn:

What authentic leadership really means (beyond buzzwords)
Why women and marginalized leaders struggle more with authenticity at work
The emotional and organizational benefits of authentic leadership
How to gradually build authentic leadership even in unsupportive workplaces
Three mindset shifts to lead with more courage, truth, and impact

Key Takeaways

Look to your values—not external cues—to guide how you show up
Honor your unique truth in every room, regardless of hierarchy
Question the status quo with curiosity and challenge norms that no longer serve
Remember: Authentic leadership boosts creativity, trust, retention, and well-being

Key Topics Covered

authentic leadership
women in leadership
leadership mindset
workplace authenticity
burnout and leadership
values-based leadership
leadership development podcast
how to lead authentically

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Ready to define your personal values and lead with authenticity?

Full Episode Transcript

So today’s episode is a “do as I say, not as I do” situation because it’s inspired by me making a big old mistake based on something I regularly talk about: authentic leadership.

Many months ago, I had a professional consultant audit my online persona, and they told me I needed to drastically update my personal website — it wasn’t professional enough. They gave me a bunch of examples of big-name authors I should emulate. And I thought, okay, I want to be a big-name author, so I’m going to do all the things these incredible authors are doing — who, by the way, probably aren’t doing any of the things on their websites because they have entire teams behind them.

But regardless, I was going to DIY it. I came up with my brand promises, taglines, and buzzwords. I tried to design it, put it on the backend, and make the best website possible based on the script of “here’s the mold you need to jam your personal website into to be considered a professional author.”

Over the last six months, I’ve gone through, conservatively, 100 versions of my website — changing the taglines and all the things — and they never felt right. I’d settle on something for one day, and the next day I’d wake up thinking, I hate it. It’s awful. It’s garbage.

It finally dawned on me — literally last week — what was going on. Flipping back to my own playbook, I realized I had completely abandoned my authentic viewpoint. Because I’m not a marketing or website person, I felt uncomfortable doing this whole professionalization process. Instead of looking inward and asking, “What would I want to say? What’s uniquely mine to say here? What’s the authentic version of this for me?” I 100% took the old playbook: “Here’s what I’m supposed to do,” and tried to force myself into it — even though it didn’t feel right.

Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

As I looked at this today, I thought, we need to talk about authentic leadership. Because it’s not just about wasting hours trying to make a website cool — it’s about how you show up every day at work, which impacts everyone around you and affects your own mental health and well-being.

That’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’ll explore what authentic leadership even is — because it comes up a lot, it’s kind of buzzwordy, but there’s no single definition. We’ll discuss three specific mindset shifts and practices you can use to cultivate more authentic leadership in your life, and we’ll investigate why it’s such a powerful tool both inside and outside the workplace.

To start us off, here’s another story — I’m full of them today.

In 2017, I was invited to speak on an island off the coast of Canada. I had to fly to Vancouver, then get on a floatplane to Cortez Island, in the middle of nowhere. I got off the little floatplane onto this adorable island, surrounded by gorgeous mountains and the ocean, heading to Hollyhock Leadership Institute for Social Venture Institute, where I was speaking.

I arrived not knowing a single soul. There were probably 100 people at this conference. As the conference was starting, we were all outside on this gorgeous lawn under beautiful trees, and I felt like a middle schooler at lunch with no one to sit with — just sitting at my table, looking around, hoping I’d see a friendly face.

I was uncomfortable, awkward, scanning for social cues — how do I act in this situation? What do I do with my arms? And out of nowhere, I heard someone begin singing Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.” I would pretend to sing it now, but it would be the worst, so I won’t. But this gorgeous voice was singing: “Birds flying high, you know how I feel.” And I was like, what is going on?

This woman walked down the path in a flowy silk dress, with a pompadour-esque mohawk, big gold earrings, Birkenstocks — just belting out this song. I thought, who is this queen? I was obsessed immediately.

She stopped singing, introduced herself, and said, “I’m Jocelyn Macdougall, and I’ll be your host and facilitator for the conference over the next three days.” Part of me was thinking, oh my gosh, doesn’t she know this is a business conference? What is she doing up there?

Look at all of us buttoned-up professional humans. Why is she singing? Why is she wearing Birkenstocks and giant earrings? She’s just going to get eaten alive because she’s so different, right? That was the old playbook, the buttoned-up, insecure version of me having those thoughts.

But over the next three days — and I feel confident speaking for all 100 people — every single human at that conference fell madly in love with Jocelyn. She was the best facilitator I had ever seen. She held challenging conversations with grace and levity. There was so much humor. Everyone felt encouraged to be a braver, brighter version of themselves because of her presence.

On the last day, I was so inspired by her that, at lunch, I thought, I’m leaving this afternoon. It’s now or never. I’m going to take my shot. I walked up, introduced myself, and said, “I think we’re supposed to be friends for the rest of our lives.”

Playing it cool, Meghan. Nailed it.

And because Jocelyn is delightful, she didn’t immediately reject me. She said, “Sure, let’s exchange numbers.”

Later that year, we had a Skype call — it was 2017 — and though it’s hard to build a friendship over Skype with someone you don’t really know, I felt like I knew her. She had no idea who I was, but later that year, I had this idea for a big women’s conference, and she popped into my head. I called to see if she wanted to come down and co-host it with me. She did.

Thus began a lifelong friendship. I wasn’t wrong when I told her we were meant to be best friends. We have, in fact, become that. We’ve worked together for the last eight years, putting on tons of conferences and workshops around the country. Next week, I’m literally leaving to go to Coach and Kate Spade with her to do a workshop for their Women’s Employee Resource Group.

We have sealed the bond — and it all started at Hollyhock, where I watched her show up as her full, authentic self.

Why does this matter? Because, for me, she was the embodiment of why authentic leadership works. Why showing up as gorgeous and as large as you want to be, in your own skin, speaking your own truth, and being yourself absolutely sets you apart in a leadership context and in professional settings.

Jocelyn endeared herself to the entire community and was literally booked time and time again by a ton of people who were there. It became a huge professional opportunity for her — because she just showed up as herself.

We’re going to talk about why that is and also why it feels so hard to do.

Let’s kick this off by talking about what authentic leadership actually is. For me, I used to have, I guess you’d say, a shallow version of what authentic leadership meant. I thought it was basically someone who was brave enough to show up at the office wearing whatever they wanted and saying whatever they wanted.

And while that can be part of authentic leadership, it really means leading from a place that is true to who you are.

What I identified, as I talked to many authentic leaders and looked at the research, is that it’s about operating and leading as you are — but as your highest and best self. It’s going down into your deeper values, your deeper truth, your inner wisdom. It’s about challenging the status quo, having emotional regulation. There are a lot of components that come together to make someone a genuinely authentic leader.

The thing I didn’t understand was that it’s something you can hone over time. You can step into it gradually.

When I talked to Jocelyn about her authentic leadership journey, you’d imagine — meeting her now — that she came out of the womb like this. But she told me that was 100% not the case in her early career. In her early 20s, she used to wear the kitten heels and the power suit, showing up as a very polished version of herself. She felt she had to conform to be accepted in the professional community.

But later in her 20s and early 30s, she noticed that the more she dialed up her authentic leadership, spoke her truth, and showed up in ways truer to herself, she got positive feedback — it set her apart. She said she essentially just took the dial and kept gradually turning it up until she became truly authentic all the time.

That was an important point for me to understand: it doesn’t have to be an overnight flip of the switch. And honestly, I’m still contending with this eight years later as I step into my own authentic leadership.

The other critical point is that there’s no part of me saying — or shaming anyone — if you cannot show up in your full authentic leadership right now, especially if you’re at a workplace where you don’t feel safe, included, or secure in your job.

When we talk about authentic leadership in the workplace, one key thing we often overlook is how scary it can be. Because it’s tied to our livelihoods, our financial stability, often even our sense of self-worth.

So if you’re feeling fear about stepping into it — that’s real. That’s 100% valid.

There are areas where you can begin to gently dial it up. One leader I spoke to talked about the “2% rule” — trying to get 2% better at something every week or month, instead of making it a huge black-and-white change. It’s about gradual progression, leaning gently into something, seeing how people respond, rather than showing up the next day as an entirely different person.

This is one of the elements of bringing your whole self to work: not all workspaces are safe to do so. And that’s hard. It’s hard enough to feel like you constantly aren’t enough and have to change yourself for your workplace.

So: if you can’t step into your full authentic leadership right now, there is no shame. Zero shame.

But when I talk about the beauty of authentic leadership, let’s start here.

I’m wondering for you — have you ever been around someone in a professional setting who’s like Jocelyn? Who’s your Jocelyn?

A leader who shows up wholly authentically, where it doesn’t matter what room they’re in — they don’t deviate, they don’t change, they’re not wearing a mask. They show up, they speak their truth, they are very much themselves.

How do you feel when you’re around these people? What do they make you think? What do they make you feel about yourself?

For me, after meeting Jocelyn and leaving that conference, I was inspired to lean into my own authentic leadership — a little more, and a little more, and a little more — until it became my norm, not the exception.

I would say the vast majority of spaces I show up in now, I feel very confident in my full authentic self. And I’m still working on it — because it’s really freaking hard.

And this is especially true for women.

Why? Well, if you listened to the previous episode (I think it was episode two), I talked about why women are struggling more in the workplace than men.

One dynamic is that business, as a social construct, has been around for thousands of years. And it’s only been in the last 50 years or so that women have come into it in any significant way — where we’ve been elevated into leadership roles.

That means men have shaped and led the business world for nearly the entire time it’s existed — thousands and thousands of years — and we’re just getting our little foothold in.

When women entered the workplace in earnest in the 1970s, we were the minority population entering a dominant culture: white, straight, male, able-bodied — that’s the dominant culture in business, and it still is today.

When you have a minority identity entering a dominant culture, you often feel you need to adopt the cultural norms to be accepted.

An obvious example is immigrants — when you immigrate to a new country, you try to adopt the cultural norms in hopes you’ll be accepted into the new community. The same is true for women and marginalized identities in the workplace.

We feel like we have to dress more masculinely. We have to show masculine traits. We can’t show emotion. There’s rampant anti-femininity in the business world. And that’s what we feel we have to embody to succeed.

This was especially true for the older generations — women now in their 60s and 70s, who were pioneers, often the first women in their office, industry, or role. Everyone was scrutinizing them. They had to prove themselves over and over, often over-assimilating — taking on masculine qualities beyond even what the men did — all in the name of being accepted.

And we are still doing this today.

I still remember heading to my first CEO conference in 2016. It was like 80% male CEOs. And I ran to Marshalls in advance to get a freaking power suit — one I found in the junior section. It was chintzy — I can still feel the fabric on my body — like a sausage casing, with a peplum.

My God, anyway, I digress — it was the worst. But in my brain, I was like, “Must wear power suit. Even though I can’t afford it. Even though it looks like garbage. Going to put on high heels, even though I’ve had three knee surgeries.”

Because if I had any chance of succeeding, being accepted, or included, I felt like I had to show up like that — not like me.

Meghan French Dunbar (19:21)

This idea that “I have to become someone else to be included” — here’s another example.

Stephanie Nadi Olson (19:25):
“I think I have bent and flexed and thwarted myself into all sorts of knots and shapes to try to conform and assimilate in the business world.

“I think it starts with stories. I started collecting stories from businesspeople when I was a kid, realizing the difference between me and those people, and figuring out: What do I need to be to be successful?

“I started trying to be like these people who were not who I am, where I come from, how I look, or how I was raised. So, it’s been a lifelong journey for me, trying to assimilate and figure out how to fit into business.

“I think pretending I don’t have children is a big one. You know — giving birth and becoming fundamentally changed in terms of who I am and how I view the world, and then needing to show up at work as if none of that is happening. That’s a really big one because I didn’t want to be penalized. I didn’t want people to expect less of me and then manifest that by giving me less responsibility or including me less because I was a mom.

“So just trying to hide that really important part of my identity.

“Another one I’ve been talking about recently is trying to hide that I was raised Muslim and that I’m Palestinian — that’s a really big one because there aren’t many of us.

“I’m really fortunate that I’m white-presenting and have been able to get through life with a name like Stephanie, without people digging too much into my heritage. But I’ve purposefully kept it quiet and haven’t been honest in a lot of ways about who I am — until more recently, once I felt like I had the power to not give a shit.”

Meghan French Dunbar (21:11)

And here’s the really hard part: We feel like we have to assimilate in order to be included.

Belonging is one of our core human needs.

This is again from The Myth of Normal — a book I’ll probably reference for years. Dr. Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté talk about how we have two inherent, core human needs.

Belonging — this sense of survival, all the way back to our hunter-gatherer days — is a core human need. You didn’t want to be kicked out of the tribe because you’d starve. We need to feel included. We’re social beings.

So when you walk into a workplace where all these cultural norms have already been established, you feel like you have to suck it up and become the picture of what everyone else is doing so you can belong. It’s how you feel like you’re going to succeed.

The stakes are very high. This is your livelihood, your career, your success.

And so you convince yourself that you have to be a certain way.

There are a lot of understandable reasons we do this — but it’s making us miserable. So freaking miserable.

And here’s why.

Again, from The Myth of Normal: The Matés found that one of the core predictors of disease on planet Earth is excessive concern about social acceptability — which is exactly what women in the workplace (and in society in general) are constantly dealing with.

We’re judged from every angle. In the workplace, we’re held to higher standards, judged more harshly, and have to prove our competence over and over.

It’s exhausting to constantly worry about what other people are thinking.

But then, the Matés also found that the second core human need is expressing our individuality — being our authentic self.

So when we enter workplaces where we feel we have to change ourselves to belong (core need #1), we’re in direct conflict with our need to be authentic (core need #2). They’re constantly butting heads. It’s a perpetual lose-lose.

You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. One of them is going to suffer.

And so, almost always, we lean toward belonging because we tell ourselves it’s the way to succeed. We don’t want to lose our jobs or put our careers in jeopardy. So we suppress our authenticity.

And here’s the kicker: Suppressing authenticity is one of the six key predictors of burnout.

Feeling out of alignment with your values, feeling out of alignment with who you are — it leads to burnout. It leads to disease.

It stresses us out to constantly put on that mask and head into the workplace feeling like we’re not enough as we are, like we’re not good enough, like we have to change to be accepted.

And then — here’s the even more effed-up part — so often we still aren’t accepted.

We bend and twist and change ourselves to fit in, and then we hit the “good old boys club” and we’re still not accepted, even though we’re trying our hardest.

And in the circumstances where we do get accepted after changing ourselves, it’s not true inclusion — because they’re not including the real you. They’re including the faux version of you, who isn’t a real entity.

So, the answer?

Authentic leadership.

Which is, of course, easier said than done.

Like I said — I’m still a work in progress. I’ve studied this stuff for years, I’ve written about it, and I just got sucked into the comparison vortex. Six months later, I popped out and thought, yep, I did it again — assimilated right along with the best of them.

But here’s the practice: Begin again.

Be compassionate with yourself, and as soon as you realize you’ve fallen off, invite yourself to re-step into that authenticity.

So let’s talk about three specific practices or mindset shifts that I’ve identified — from talking to all the people I’ve interviewed in my career and from looking at the research on authentic leadership.

Why cultivate authentic leadership?

Because research shows, over and over, that it’s 100% a more effective leadership approach.

Authentic leaders inspire positive emotional responses in people who work with them.

That’s what I experienced around Jocelyn — and what so many of the other attendees experienced. When you see someone being fully authentic, you feel this genuine, positive feeling — you just feel better being around them.

And those positive emotions? They inspire creativity. They inspire people to be better versions of themselves.

Research also shows authentic leadership strengthens workers’ emotional connection to their organizations — it improves trust and loyalty. It’s actually a way to increase employee retention.

People feel better around these leaders, and they feel better about the organizations they work for.

So that’s the impact authentic leadership has on others.

The impact it has on yourself? Incredible.

Think about when you’re around the people in your life — friends, family, whoever — with whom you get to be your full, entire self. Those are the moments you light up. You feel aligned with your values, you feel happy, you feel accepted.

Because you’re just being yourself, and they love you for it.

And it feels incredible.

That doesn’t have to be reserved for the rare moments with close friends or a once-a-year trip. You can bring that into the workplace. You can be accepted for your full self every day.

You don’t have to wear a mask. You don’t have to pretend. You can speak your truth and lead from your values — and it will feel so much better.

Meghan French Dunbar (30:10)

So, when I talk about the mindset shift, we’re looking at the old playbook versus the new playbook.

Mindset shift number one:

The old playbook tells us we’re supposed to look to others for cues on how we’re supposed to behave. We’re supposed to watch the norms and behaviors of people around us, and that’s supposed to inform how we show up.

The new playbook — your Better Than This practice — is to look to your values to inform how you want to show up and behave.

For me, at least, this wasn’t always obvious. When people used to talk about values, I’d think, yeah, yeah, I know my values. But if you’d asked me to write them down off the top of my head, I probably would’ve said, “Uh, family?” I had a vague sense, but I couldn’t articulate them.

That changed when my friend Nathan Havey asked me about them back in 2018 or 2019. We were identifying the values for my company, and then Nathan said, “I want you to take this exercise home and identify your personal values.”

I went home, I did the work, and I still keep that piece of paper by my desk — tucked into a little flower my son Jack drew for me. My five values are: impact, exploration, love, joy, and authenticity.

I recommend five values for everyone.

If you’re sitting here thinking, “I don’t know what my values are,” that’s okay! I’ve got a worksheet on my website that can help you actually sit down and do the work Nathan made me do — so you can articulate your values.

And here’s why it matters.

A few years ago, Jocelyn and I led a women’s executive leadership workshop at a plastics manufacturing company in the Midwest. We were talking about values, and someone asked, “Why are we even talking about values?”

Out of nowhere, this visual popped into my head.

I said, “Each of us is like one of those flailing windsock people outside a used car lot — you know, the ones whipping all over the place in the wind.”

The wind is all the pressure, social expectations, challenges, work — all the things blowing us around.

Your sandbags, the things tied to the bottom of you, are your values. They hold you to the ground and keep the prevailing winds — which are often fierce — from whipping you around to the point where you can’t function.

Your values are what keep you grounded.

(33:00)

So, what does that look like?

This is one of the practices I’ve been building into my own work over the last few years, and I’ve seen many of the leaders I’ve talked to do the same.

A simple example: imagine you’re heading into a meeting.

Let’s say I’m going into a room with people who have way more experience than me, or a different background, or some sort of expertise I don’t have. There are all sorts of reasons to second-guess my own value, to worry about what I’m going to say, how I’ll be received, what I should contribute — all of it.

In those moments, I take a deep breath, I review my values, and I think: How would my values guide me to show up here?

Let me give you a real-life example.

I was at a conference a couple of years ago. I sat down at a table with six men, all in their 60s and 70s, and all of them knew each other — they’d been on a board together.

I sat down, looked around, and thought, “Oh no. I don’t even know if I should be here.” The insecurities rushed in. I almost picked up my plate and left (which would have been awkward because I actually knew some of these guys).

Instead, I sat quietly, feeling like I had nothing to add. They were more “successful,” they all knew each other. I thought, “I’ll just eat my veggie burger and say nothing for the next hour.”

But then — deep breath, Meghan.

I reviewed my values.

What could my values inspire here?

I thought about joy, love, curiosity, exploration. And so, in a lull in the conversation, I asked:

“Could each of you tell me about a moment in the last year that was your most joyful? What’s one of the happiest things that’s happened to you recently?”

And right after, I thought, “Oh geez, what did I just do?”

But then — one of them answered. He told me about his daughter’s wedding. Then another jumped in, sharing about an incredible trip with his wife. Suddenly, they were all telling me about the most beautiful, meaningful moments of their lives from the past year.

It cracked us all open.

Instead of me silently eating my veggie burger, by rooting into my values, I invited us into a gorgeous conversation — and I connected with them in a way I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Some leaders I know have beautiful ways of keeping their values front and center.

For example, Kathy Bolhous, the CEO of Charter Next Generation — after we did this exercise with her, she keeps her values written on her phone. Last time I saw her, she showed me: they’re saved right there in her notes.

My friend Ayla Schlosser? She keeps hers in a spreadsheet on her desktop. Every Friday, she opens it and checks: “Were there any moments this week when I was out of alignment with my values?”

Whether it’s a spreadsheet, your phone, a sticky note on your mirror — have some kind of small artifact that you can refer back to.

Use it as a guide for decision-making, as a touchstone for how you want to show up, and as a regular reminder to come back to yourself.

Because your values — they’re your nonnegotiables. They’re the foundation of how you want to live, love, and lead.

One of the better ways to think about what your values might be is: How do you want people to talk about you when you are not in the room, or when you leave this earth? How do you hope people remember you?

What are the things — the character traits — that are nonnegotiable for you, that inform how you want to live your life?

What better way to have those articulated and to be able to constantly reference them? That’s one of the best ways you can keep rooting back into your authentic self, especially when you lose your way.

So, your values — that’s mindset shift number one.

Mindset shift number two:

The old playbook would tell us that our opinion, our perspective, our truth varies in its value based on who’s in the room.

What I mean by this is that there are some rooms where you feel you have the title, or you’re a manager or whatnot, and you feel open to speak your truth. But then there are other rooms you go into, where there are people of higher “status” than you, or higher on the hierarchy, and so you withhold your truth because you feel as though it’s not as valuable as other people’s in the room.

The new playbook is honoring your truth, regardless of the room you are in.

And this is a very hard one, especially for — again — women. We’ve been trained to be docile and sweet and not make other people uncomfortable and to be quiet.

Speaking and offering your truth, and believing that your truth is as valuable as everyone else’s regardless of their title, is hard. But it is a key element of authentic leadership: speaking your truth and honoring who you are, and the unique gift that your specific perspective brings to the room.

When I’m talking about this, I often think — and I’m going full pep talk here, people, so buckle up — I often think about how miraculous each individual human is.

Yes, there are nearly 8 billion of us, but the odds that you exist as a human being are staggering.

When you think about all the planets that exist, and the fact that we still haven’t really found life anywhere else; that the conditions exist here to support life; that over the hundreds of thousands of years we’ve existed as a species, your ancestors survived everything they went through — diseases, wars, all the things — so that your lineage led to the people who created you; and that you were born in this moment in time...

It’s a miracle.

You are the only you that will ever exist. You are the only person who is exactly like you, who has had the experiences, the education, all of the things that have happened to you, the generational trauma, the generational wisdom that has been handed down — all of those things packaged together give you a unique perspective in your brain that no other human being alive has.

And so, when I invite you to offer your truth, it’s coming from that inner place of knowing that what you have to say is valuable — regardless of your title, regardless of your age, regardless of any identifier.

Your truth is as valuable as any other person’s in the room.

And this is hard, yes — especially when you’re in rigid, hierarchical, command-and-control organizational cultures where anyone who is not the CEO is essentially supposed to sit there and not really open their mouth unless they’re called upon.

But it is possible to begin stepping into this, and practicing speaking your truth.

One of the most authentic leaders I have ever had the gift of knowing is Alfa Demmellash. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Rising Tide Capital.

When I was speaking to her, she offered just this little nugget of gold when she was talking about how she regularly comes back to honoring her truth. And it’s the very simple question:

“What is uniquely mine to say right now?”

She said that before she walks into big meetings, or if she’s in a room where she’s feeling uncomfortable, she goes back to that question.

It’s not, “What do I think other people want me to say?” No — it’s, “What is uniquely mine to say right now?”

And that roots back into that place of inner knowing — of who you are — and offering your perspective, your gift, to the room, and believing that it is genuinely as valuable as everyone else’s.

We had a big gig last year in New York. And listen — I live in Boulder, Colorado, so going into Manhattan, sometimes I can feel a little underdressed because I live in athleisure. I’m not a fashion person.

We were going into a fashion company, and I was totally second-guessing myself the night before. I was trying on all my outfits, freaking out, and I was in Jocelyn’s hotel room. She just takes me and goes, “Meg, can you take a deep breath?”

I’m like, “Yep.”

She goes, “Meg, do we change who we are based on the room we’re walking into?”

I was like, “Yes. No. No, we don’t. No, Jocelyn — we don’t.”

And so, I didn’t.

And it’s just this constant coming back to and returning to: believing that your truth and what you bring to the table is as valuable as everyone else in the room — regardless of who is in that room.

Mindset shift number three.

And then we have number three.

So, our old playbook way of doing things tells us that you do not question the norm. You do not question the status quo because people have come before us who have set that there for a reason. And if I’m going to succeed, I’m going to play by the rulebook and never question what is happening around me.

The new playbook invites you to regularly question the status quo — especially in times when it goes against your values or when your truth is, in fact, telling you to speak up.

So instead of talking through this one myself, I’m just going to give you one of my favorite CEOs in the country. Melanie Dulbecco — this is her story of questioning the norm.

Melanie Dulbecco (44:09)
We’ve always worked with different compensation agencies to make sure that our compensation structure is solid and competitive. But it struck me about three years ago when we were doing some work that we’re all looking at each other, and it’s getting more of the same.

There’s this widening income inequality and wealth inequality that’s happening in the United States and other parts of the world, but it’s getting pretty extreme in the U.S. compared to what it is elsewhere. So, I went to UC Berkeley undergrad, and I really love a group there that I follow and support called the Opportunity Lab. They do research on income inequality.

So, I’ve gotten to know some of the professors doing the research and attend events where they’re presenting the research. And I thought, you know, they’re looking to government to do something about that, but we can do something about this in business. Like, we don’t have to wait for a government program.

So how do we think about compensation differently? Well, I’m sure you know about MIT’s living wage calculator, and that’s a really good reference for us. So we benchmark living wage.

And when we did this project with the comp agency, they came back to us and said, “Well, you are paying above market for your frontline hourly team members. You don’t need to do anything there. In fact, you might have room to pay less if that’s what you’re interested in. I know you’re not going to want to do that, but you can leave that where it is. Where you need to pay more is your executives.”

And we said, “Well, what if we think market is immoral? What if we think that, you know, we’re a B Corporation, and we want to really think about how we create more opportunities for hourly people? They haven’t often had the same opportunities as the rest of us for education or exposure to other things. How do we align our B Corp heart, our core values, our development values, with the compensation structure?”

And they said, “Well, all compensation agencies look at market. So what you’re saying is something different than market. So you should establish your own compensation philosophies. And then whenever you work with a compensation agency, say, here are our philosophies and how we will apply them relative to market.”

We said, “Can you help us with that? What would a compensation philosophy look like?” And they helped us. They gave us an outline that we could then work with. So they said, “All right, look at it by level — by executive, manager or individual contributor, and hourly. And then look at it in categories of base pay, incentive pay, long-term incentive.”

And then what we realized is, with hourly people, we will pay above market. We will benchmark living wage. So our goal is to quickly get people to living wage and beyond with transferable skills. So I can spell out what that means.

We also said we’re going to pay above market in incentive pay. Most hourly people don’t get bonuses. We give bonuses. Everybody in the company gets a bonus based on revenue growth and bottom-line profitability. And everyone builds some financial literacy around that because we share those numbers with people in our quarterly meetings and keep track of it together. And everyone gets excited.

And then, in long-term incentives, everyone in the company gets to participate in our profit-sharing plan, which we’ve had in place for a long time. So everyone’s automatically enrolled in profit-sharing. We have a 401(k) plan; if you contribute to it, we match funds. But we also created an ESOP. So when we had the opportunity, we mustered the resources to buy 10% of the company to put into the employee stock ownership plan.

And now we talk about how we build the value in the company, and then people get their annual statements, and everyone in the company then also becomes an owner in the creation of that wealth.

So now we have this compensation philosophy that looks at these things, and now we can say, “All right, we’re going to pay above market in all three categories for hourly folks. For managers and individual contributors, we’re going to be competitive — we’re going to pay at least at market — but we’re going to have better benefits and incentives. And then for executives, we might pay a little below market because what we’re focused on is the relationship with these other levels.”

So that’s kind of how we sorted out compensation philosophy. And it felt really good to then have a tool to work with when we’re looking at those kinds of things.

Meghan French Dunbar (49:09)

As Melanie’s story shows us, by questioning the norm regularly — especially when it doesn’t feel right — it helps you unlock new ways of thinking, new ideas. It helps you root into innovation, find solutions, and set yourself apart from the status quo.

Melanie’s company — because she does things like this — she’s the CEO of Torani Syrups, and for the last 34 years with her at the helm, they have grown more than 20% year over year for more than 30 years in a row. That is a staggering amount of business growth.

And so much of it comes down to the fact that she does not accept the status quo as the way she is supposed to do things. She looks at the status quo, whatever playbook she’s given, she takes it into consideration, and then she questions it from a place of curiosity: Is this the right way to do it? Instead of just immediately accepting something because it’s the way it’s always been done.

She’s one of the most authentic leaders I have ever met, and the proof is in the pudding — or the proof is in the syrup. Sorry again — sorry for the bad joke, guys.

It’s a more effective way to lead.

Like, I just — that’s all I’m going to say on it.

So, recapping here:

Leading from your values and looking to your values to inform your behavior, instead of looking to other people to inform your behavior.
Honoring your truth, remembering that it’s a gift, and valuing it just as much as anyone else’s, regardless of who’s in the room.
Regularly questioning the norm, just constantly being in a place of curiosity, of wondering if it is in fact the best way to do things.

These three practices will help you on your journey toward becoming a more authentic leader — which, as mentioned, is better for you, better for the people around you, and just kind of better for the business community at large.

The more of us that step into our wholeness and bring our entire selves to the workplace — not only are you inspiring yourself and feeling good about yourself, you’re inspiring others around you and giving them permission to do the same.

And the more and more and more of us that do this, the better the workplace becomes.

So, that’s all for today. Thanks so much.

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