Last week I arrived in Budapest with my family.

Within hours we could tell we would really like this city, which we did. We kept referring to the ‘vibe’ of the place. My daughter, Alex, commented that what she liked about Budapest was that it felt authentic …and we all agreed.

Real or ‘try hard’?

We then had a great discussion about what makes an authentic city. For us, Budapest seemed open, real, unassuming and not ‘try hard’. Basically, it wasn’t trying to be anything it wasn’t. It wasn’t trying to be a tourist destination, it was just being itself.

I was reflecting on this and I believe the authenticity of a city is similar to that of a person.

In my latest book, Real Communication: How to be you and lead true, I talk about authentic leadership as, ‘hard to define, but easy to sense’.

When it comes to authenticity in leaders or cities it can be hard to put into words, but you just know when it is real and when it is ‘try hard’. It truly is the vibe.

So, in leadership terms, don’t try to be someone you are not to please others. Just be yourself and people might like and respect you more for that. In the words of Oscar Wilde, ‘Be yourself, everyone else is already taken’.

P.S.

I Googled if you should ever quote yourself and one response said ‘Self-citing is often frowned upon, being considered (and sometimes is) vanity, egotism or an attempt in self-advertising’. So never being shy of some shameless self-promotion, I decided to keep it in.