Be Authentic But Consider Your Audience

Self Help Articles | February 15, 2011

Discover yourself and live your life authentically but always consider your audience. It is natural to want to bust loose and reveal who you are down deep but that conservative corporation where you want to make a sale may not be ready for the wild-child.

None of us want to be fake and, presenting a plastic person, isn’t palatable. Yet, first impressions count and people make their judgment about you looking through the lens of their value-system and expectations.

If you can align your appearance and communication style with those you meet, you’ll have much more successful interactions. You can still remain true to who you are but it means adjusting to the circumstances.

For example, when I was a young woman executive working in the male-dominated fertilizer world, I wore my hair up in a bun to look older, believing I’d be taken more seriously. After a number of years of routinely getting up and knotting my hair on top of my head every workday, I looked in the mirror and realized that it was no longer necessary. I was old and it was time to start trying to look younger!

I relaxed my hair into something that felt more like the authentic me, which was the way that I had worn my hair on weekends all along. When wearing the bun, I didn’t feel like I was being disingenuous but rather that I was tweaking my style and being intentional about my image.

To make a good impression, it is also important to consider your audience and what is happening in their lives. It will affect their openness to listen.

For example, a good friend, who is a successful fundraiser, organized an event last summer, which included hockey players and coaches. She learned quickly that if she wanted to approach them with a request, she had a much better chance of getting agreement if she called the day after a winning game.

She had never followed the NHL before but quickly adapted her personal timetable to that of her audience. Additionally, she peppered her vocabulary with sports metaphors, using language that the players and coaches related to. By making adjustments to match her style to that of her audience, she helped ensure the success of her project.

People will form impressions of you very quickly based on your image and interests. To present yourself authentically, you need to discover who you are but you also have to consider your audience. The two go hand in hand. Can you align your authentic self with your image, while considering the expectations of your audience?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After a highly successful career in business, including 26 years with PotashCorp where she was Senior Vice-President, Betty-Ann retired in 2007, the same year that she was named to Canada‘s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Hall of Fame™. She now works as a speaker, author and mentor and is committed to using her personal and professional experiences to inspire and empower other women. A firm believer in the value women bring to organizations, Betty-Ann explores changing perceptions of male and female roles including candid observations about what she calls "Good Gender Physics” on her blog at www.stillettochick.com. She helps both men and women understand the primary energy of their gender but also accept and appreciate the strengths of their opposite.