The Authentic Leadership Paradox

Why being fully human may be your greatest competitive advantage

I recently sat down with Lotta Lyrå, CEO of Södra, for a conversation that challenged conventional wisdom about leadership. What struck me most wasn't her impressive business acumen or strategic vision, but rather her profound commitment to bringing her full humanity to work every day – and the surprising impact this has had on business performance.

In a world of carefully constructed executive personas, Lotta represents something different: a leader who understands that authenticity isn't just a feel-good buzzword, but potentially the most powerful business tool at her disposal.

The unexpected power of genuine connection

What does authenticity in leadership actually mean? It's a term so overused it's become almost meaningless. But when I asked Lotta about it, her answer had nothing to do with leadership frameworks or corporate values.

"I think about my grandmother," she said. "She was born in 1913 and lived until 2007... she taught me a lot about seeing people and giving people warmth and love. She made me feel very special."

This unexpected reference point reveals something crucial that's missing from most leadership conversations. Authentic leadership isn't about techniques or strategies – it's fundamentally about making others feel seen in a genuine way. As Lotta put it, "Authenticity is very much about getting people to feel special."

This might sound soft or disconnected from business results, but that's exactly where things get interesting. The deeper we went into our conversation, the clearer it became that this approach to leadership isn't at odds with performance – it may actually be the foundation of it.

The courage to bring your whole self

There's a profound paradox at the heart of authentic leadership: the more you invest yourself personally in the work, the more impact you can have – but the more vulnerable you become.

Lotta described how her approach has evolved over the past decade: "Today I can invest myself. When I communicate our strategy or when I represent Södra or other companies I work with... it's Lotta you get."

This doesn't mean blurring the boundaries between work and personal life, but rather bringing your heart and intuition – not just your rational mind – to leadership challenges.

"That's where the manifestation of courage is," she explained, "being secure enough to believe that I add something by investing myself rather than it just being a product of my rationality, my brain, and my smartness. No, you get all of me – that's how I lead."

Wait, that can't be right... but actually, maybe it is? Maybe leadership isn't about presenting the perfect, polished version of ourselves, but rather about having the courage to show up as fully human – with all the strengths and limitations that implies.

Structure for culture

One of the most practical insights from our conversation was Lotta's concept of "structure for culture" – the idea that cultural change requires intentional architectural support.

After becoming CEO, she made several structural changes to send clear signals about the culture she wanted to build. One of the first was moving out of the executive floor, where the previous CEO had an entire corridor including a massive office with multiple seating areas, to sit among regular employees on the second floor.

"I sit in the corridor on the second floor... right in the stairwell where I see lots of people. They say hello and so on," she explained. This wasn't just symbolic – it fundamentally changed who she encountered daily and the conversations she could have.

Another powerful example was creating a standing agenda item for leadership team meetings called "Rumors and Sourdough" (where "sourdough" refers to issues that are fermenting within the organization). This simple structural change ensured that potential issues bubbling beneath the surface would have a forum for discussion before they became problematic.

"You can't just hope people will change," Lotta noted. "You have to find an architecture... How do I adapt the structure to create the culture I want?"

This pragmatic approach recognizes that culture doesn't change through vision statements or value posters. It changes through consistent behaviors that eventually become muscle memory within the organization – and those behaviors often need structural support until they become natural.

Redefining leadership team effectiveness

Perhaps the most counterintuitive leadership practice Lotta described was how she handles leadership team meetings and presentations to the board.

Instead of the traditional approach where each functional leader presents their own area of responsibility, she intentionally has leaders present on topics outside their primary domain. This forces them to understand the whole business rather than just their silo.

"When we meet our members, it's always a board representative and a management team representative. And the management team member represents the whole of Södra," she explained. "As a functional manager, you have to be able to talk about the business. And this, I actually think, is something that's easy to underestimate. But this thing about pride, being able to talk about something that someone else did, it creates magic."

This approach transforms the leadership team from a collection of functional experts protecting their territories into a true team collectively responsible for the entire business. It's a simple shift, but one that addresses a fundamental problem in most executive teams.

When I asked if she'd apply this same approach in future CEO roles, she answered without hesitation: "Absolutely."

The passion imperative

Throughout our conversation, Lotta returned to the theme of passion as a critical and often overlooked element of sustained leadership impact.

"I've made it a point to choose things to work on that I'm really passionate about," she explained. "Passion is energy."

She described her seemingly unlikely passion for areas like pulp mills and energy balances in factories – technical domains far from her educational background. This ability to find genuine interest in the specifics of the business creates a virtuous cycle: the passion makes the work energizing rather than depleting, which in turn allows for sustained high performance.

In Lotta's view, identifying people with passion for what they do is "absolutely unbeatable" when selecting team members. This goes beyond surface-level enthusiasm to a deeper commitment and curiosity that drives continuous improvement and innovation.

"What's the best thing I've done in my life?" she reflected. "The years when I wrote my dissertation. Because it was such a struggle. But what happened in that process – it's such a wow feeling."

This perspective suggests that the challenges that require the most from us are often those that give us the most energy in return – if we can find genuine passion for the work itself.

The humanity-performance connection

One of the most thought-provoking moments in our conversation came when I asked Lotta what questions she's still exploring that don't have clear answers yet.

"I believe very much in the thesis that by having an organization where you can be yourself and access the whole person, it creates performance," she said. She described a moment of validation when her CFO, who had come from other companies, acknowledged that Södra's strong profitability comes from its culture.

"I almost had tears in my eyes, actually. Because that's really my thesis," Lotta explained. "I really believe you can combine humanistic leadership that takes its starting point in belief in people with hardcore performance focus and being the best in the market. I'm convinced it can be done."

This conviction – that human-centered leadership and high performance aren't just compatible but synergistic – represents a profound challenge to traditional leadership models that see these as trade-offs to be managed rather than complementary forces.

The lingering question

As our conversation concluded, I found myself reflecting on a question that feels increasingly urgent in our age of artificial intelligence and digital transformation: What if the most sustainable competitive advantage isn't technological at all, but deeply human?

In an era where technical capabilities can be quickly copied and algorithms can automate many aspects of business, perhaps the ability to create environments where people feel truly seen, where they can bring their full selves to work, and where they find genuine passion for what they do represents the ultimate competitive moat.

Lotta shared a lesson her daughter learned from training horses: "You can be as clear as you want with the horse as long as your eyes shine with love."

This beautifully captures the paradox at the heart of authentic leadership – you can drive hard for results, be crystal clear about expectations, and maintain unwavering standards, but the underlying tone of genuine care and connection is what ultimately enables sustainable high performance.

The question for each of us is whether we have the courage to lead this way – to bring our full humanity to work, to create structures that support the cultures we want to build, and to believe that performance and humanistic leadership aren't opposing forces but complementary ones.