Writing my new book, Lessons in Authenticity, was the hardest thing I have ever put on paper thanks to the reflection it demanded.
When the subject of your book is authentic leadership, you can't be selective about which parts of yourself you examine. You have to look honestly at every bad decision, every moment you showed up worse than you should have, every time you chose the comfortable path over the truthful one.
That process was uncomfortable in ways I didn't fully anticipate when I started.
Not long after I finished the manuscript, I walked into a meeting with my team in a state I wasn't prepared to share. My dog was seriously ill, I had barely slept, and I was carrying more than I had acknowledged even to myself.
As a result, I was uncharacteristically harsh in that meeting, and my team didn't understand what was happening or why.
I had two choices: move past it and hope it faded, or lead with the authenticity I had spent months writing about.
So I went back in front of all of them, I apologized publicly, and I shared a little of what had been going on in my life - not as an excuse, but as context, and as an act of accountability.
That moment taught me something the writing process alone could not: authenticity is not a set of values you articulate in a book.
It's a daily practice, and sometimes it looks like standing in front of your team and saying that you got something wrong.
First posted on LinkedIn, June 18, 2026.