How much do people need to know about you to trust you as a leader?

You cant be a leader without having followers, and to have people trust you they may want to know about your life outside of work as well as your five-year strategy plan. The benefits of authenticity for the individual seem pretty straight-forward; most of us feel better when we are honest about who we are, but we also have good reasons for keeping our personal and professional lives separate. Human beings are judgmental by nature, and ‘fitting in’ is often a prerequisite for ‘getting ahead.’ It seems however that revelations are not created equal.

Tim Cook let the world know that he is gay in a personal statement to Bloomberg Businessweek. This statement comes four and half months after Simon Hobbs accidentally exposed Cook as being gay in a live conversation with NY Times columnist Jim Stewart on CNBC. At that time, Stewart stated that he had contacted many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies when writing an article about John Browne’s book, The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out is Good for Business, all of whom refused to make a statement. It isn’t clear whether or not this accidental reference on national television, or Browne’s experience of being publicly exposed as a closeted chief executive influenced Cook’s decision to reveal the truth about his sexuality, but his decision to do so marks the first time in history an active CEO of a Fortune 500 company admitted to being gay.

It was a powerful action on many levels: he is making a difference for all people who struggle with prejudice in its many shapes and sizes by taking such a great risk, and fearlessly facing those prejudices head-on; the courage is inspiring to all of us; and, his own sense of self must have expanded at warp speed when those words hit the page, the press, and the internet. How it must have felt to be so open and honest about such a personal, and typically private matter? And, most interestingly to those in business, how will this feeling affect his professional life, internally and externally?

Being Open and Honest is part of Authentic Leadership
Being honest about our principles and values, not only in our personal lives, but professionally as well, is a defining aspect of what has come to be known as authentic leadership. A theory well known to those in management science for years, authentic leadership made its public debut as an accepted leadership style in Bill George’s 2003 book of the same title. As defined in a 2005 review paper published by the Leadership Quarterly, authenticity is defined as, “owning one’s personal experiences, be they thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, or beliefs captured by the injunction to know oneself, and further implies that one acts in accord with the true self, expressing oneself in ways that are consistent with inner thoughts and feelings.”

When combined with leadership, authenticity is evidenced by a kind of self-regulation that comes from within. One of the most in-depth studies defining the benefits of authentic leadership came out of University of Nebraska in 2008, Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure. The authors define this internal process as a pre-requisite of becoming an authentic leader,

“authenticity is achieved when individuals enact internalized self-regulation processes—that is, their conduct is guided by internal values as opposed to external threats, inducements, or social expectations and rewards.” They go on to assert that the benefits of this leadership style are proven and well-documented, “Both of these research streams provide impressive empirical evidence of the positive consequences that accrue in terms of physical and psychological well-being to individuals who achieve relatively high levels of authenticity.”

Whereas the University of Nebraska study was successful in determining measurable benefits for managers who choose an authentic leadership style—mainly, increased organizational commitment, improved organizational culture, greater job satisfaction and greater satisfaction with supervisors—the risks of truly being authentic for any of the many groups of people whom are not straight, white men in the uppermost echelons of corporate America are not yet fully known, because very few, if any, of these leaders have ever existed, until now. As Cook wrote late last week, “While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”

The risks involved with this kind of statement, however, are very well known, especially for those people whose backgrounds and cultures are under-represented in the highest echelons of corporate leadership.

Women and authentic leadership
Alice Eagly has researched at length that women despite revelations, “may find it difficult to achieve relational authenticity because they are not accorded the same level of legitimacy as leaders.”

Because women and others whose cultures and backgrounds differ from those of white men, they have an additional risk when leading authentically—they risk losing the favor of people whose beliefs and values are in conflict with their own and thereby decreasing their ability to be accepted as leaders. With this in mind, Cook’s admission of his sexuality is impressive as it marks a pointed challenge of current assumptions about equality and acceptance, but will it make a difference for women on their way to the top, as well?

In an editorial about the significance of Cook’s coming out, Arnd Reikmann of the German media group Deutsche Wells, asserts there is a direct relationship between the challenges facing gay and female leaders.

“Like many female managers – regardless of sexual orientation – gay men hit glass ceilings in the business world again and again.”

Waiting to get to the top before announcing LGBT status has been the trend for the few women who have had revelations to make.

Beth Brooke, EY’s Global Vice Chair for Public Policy, was clear in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that “Life really did get better.” In fact, the article claims that most top executives who were coming out found that they were met with support, and that their job performance improved as a result of being more at ease with their colleagues.

Alongside these brave acts of authenticity in the current news, the research does acknowledge an evolving landscape where paths to truly authentic leadership are becoming more accessible to all people, as “trends toward participative decision making and transformational leadership produce changes in leader role requirements that in fact can make it easier for female leaders to achieve relational authenticity.”

Being truly authentic is a challenge, no matter who we are. For anyone who suffers from prejudice, and is breaking the cultural norms in society, it is an especially difficult and risky process—and of course, this risk only increases its potential power in its ability to garner all of those benefits we know truth and honesty can bring. So far, Cook’s admission is being received with great applauds for his courage and hopeful statements about what this means for all people working in business. It will take time to see how the consequences of Cook’s actions will ripple out into the future, but for now, hopefully it gives each of us a bit more fuel to find the strength to be ourselves at home, and at work, with the understanding that we are sure to find just as many people rooting for us, as we might find against us.

By Rebecca S. Caum