If you've been facilitating, training, or speaking for very long, you've undoubtedly encountered the question of your "performance." By performance, I mean the quality, tone, energy and content of your presence and presentation. Those of us concerned with presenting ourselves authentically are often faced with a conundrum when asked to adjust our performance for one reason or another. Perhaps your energy is low, or you're in a bad mood, or you just don't feel up the task right now. To this we might reply, "well if I change who I am, I won't be authentic and being authentic is very important to me."

Just the other day, I was speaking to a young 20-year old friend who works in the retail industry. He was explaining the challenges of working with unpleasant customers. I suggested an approach that might get better results with customers like this. His reply was, "But I'm not going to change who I am for someone else's benefit." This statement makes sense if we equate "who we are" with our behavior. Yes, we always have a choice about how we behave. After all, I remember my parents constantly reminding me to "Behave yourself!" If a child has control of his behavior, we adults most certainly do as well.

Further, most of us like to think of ourselves as good, kind, and reasonable people. Yet we do behave quite miserably at times, don't we? Even claiming that this is being authentic and that this is expressing my truth. In reality, what we express and how we express it is always up to us and whether we realize it or not, we have innumerable choices as to how we do this. So are we being inauthentic when we "act" outside of our natural reactions? If that were the case, then we are simply a collection of reactions, no higher in consciousness than animals operating on instinct. As humans, we have the luxury of having more choices than this and that.

Getting back to the importance of authenticity and performance for group leaders, it's a fact that how you show up as a group leader has a great impact on your group's behavior. Show up with low energy, bored, uncommitted, and disorganized and your group is sure to mirror this back to you. So what if you really do feel this way on this day when you need to lead a new group? Well, you have a choice to make then don't you? Read on as we delve a bit deeper into how to be an authentic performer.

Facilitators, trainers, and group leaders have a responsibility to engage a group and help them accomplish their stated task. This often requires higher than average levels of energy, enthusiasm, and a "bigger than life" presence. Not that you're doing you group's work for them, it's just that inspired leadership tends to call forth the best in people. Anything less than this prompts people to fall back to their typical levels of performance. Here are some tips for being authentic and inspired as a group leader.

Making it up doesn't mean it's insincere. Creating a statement, a movement, an intonation designed to better serve the purposes of your group could be considered an act. And we all know what we think of acting. Acting is the definition of insincerity. Or is it? We've all had plenty of experience gauging the quality of actors. We can tell when a performance is convincing and when it isn't. We could even say than an authentic performance is what we want. So what is an authentic performance and why are we willing to accept that as a good thing?

I believe this all has to do with one's quality of being guided by their intention. An intention on your part of empower your group in service to them getting what they most want is a very positive one. Any action you employ that embodies this intention will have you showing up in alignment with it, no matter what behavior or "act" you employ. People get an authentic performance from you if you are performing in a way that aligns with your purpose and passion. Just as Charlton Heston has an intention to play the best "Moses" possible, if his performance is "believable," that is, he really could be Moses, then he's performed in alignment with his intention.

If you're heart is in it, it's your creation. If it isn't, nobody cares. If you perform in a way that attempts to inspire people but you aren't inspired, you won't believe in your performance and neither will anyone else. You'll be perceived as inauthentic. You have to find a reason or a way to believe in the performance you're about to deliver. You have to find something worthy of your performance. This could be the greater mission or purpose of the group you're working with. It might be demonstrating your commitment to your mission of helping to transform the world one person at a time. Whatever it is, it's got to be something you believe and only to that degree will you invest yourself in the performance. When you're fully invested and committed to your performance, you believe it, and so does your audience. You're then an authentic performer.

Restraint of the instantaneous expression of your thoughts and feelings (your truth) can be evolutionary. A lot of great work has been done over the past three decades in creating spaces to make it safe for us to be real, to heal our pasts, and to share our all. Yet, this can be overdone. Simply sharing your stream of consciousness without concern for how it will further your group's agenda, serves no one but yourself.

When you access your energy and passion at will, you observe more creative thoughts, feelings, and responses in yourself and others. How can you improve your authentic performance as a group leader? Observe yourself in action and identify the following:

1. Does this feel good?
2. Is your audience feeling good?
3. Am I rediscovering myself as I speak?
4. Are my words coming through as if they were from another source.
5. Is my speech almost poetic or prose-like?
6. Is my voice peaceful, direct, harmonic, and clear?
7. Do new creative ideas of the group mind arise from nowhere?
8. Are most of the participants onboard?
9. Are the silences powerful and synchronistic?
10. Do I feel my energy expanding beyond previous boundaries including others in the group?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you are experiencing yourself as an authentic performer. Please email us what you discover, we'd love to hear from you.