When chosen by god to lead his people, Moses demurs, saying — and this is a paraphrase — ‘O Lord, I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. Okay let me put that another way. See, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.’

In short, what Moses needed was a good coach. (Yes, this would be the shameless self-promotion part of our blog post.) But of course we’re told that Moses was able to overcome his self-observed shortcomings and produce some pretty significant ROI — setting his people free and leading them to the promised land, and all.

What does Moses have to teach us about leadership, other than to use of a very beta version of PowerPoint? Maybe it would be the same message that Diane Mayer, professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, shared during a panel discussion yesterday, in effect, ‘Keep it real.’ As Moses might have said, ‘Be who you are … and have a little faith.’

But how do you do that? You live the story you tell yourself. Quoting from professor Mayer’s Harvard Business Review article ‘Discovering Your Authentic Leadership‘ from February 2007 (co-authored with George, Sims, and McLean)

‘Consciously and subconsciously, [successful leaders] were constantly testing themselves through real-world experiences and reframing their life stories to understand who they were at their core. In doing so, they discovered the purpose of their leadership and learned that being authentic made them more effective.

These findings are extremely encouraging. You do not have to be born with specific characteristics or traits of a leader.

Quoting one of the CEO’s from the study, ‘All of us have the spark of leadership in us, whether in business, in government, or as a nonprofit volunteer. The challenge is to understand ourselves well enough to discover where we can use our leadership gifts to serve others.’

Discovering requires a commitment to developing yourself. … [Don't] expect the company to hand you a development plan. You need to take responsibility for developing yourself.

First and most important, [successful leaders] frame their life stories in ways that allow them to see themselves not as passive observers of their lives but rather as individuals who can develop self-awareness from their experiences.’

So listen to the stories that you tell yourself and how it plays out in real life. And if you don’t like where it’s going, change it.

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