The advantage of congruence
This week, I’m looking at one of the fundamentals of leading well: congruence. It’s a quality that allows you to have optimum personal impact and develop an authentic, resilient leadership style. When you operate with congruence, you feel more centred, and your team and colleagues notice the difference.
What exactly is congruence?
I like to explain congruence as when your insides match your outside. In other words, your inner self aligns with your outer actions. Congruence means when your words, actions, and behaviours consistently reflect your deeply-held beliefs, values, and feelings.
Think of it as being the same person on the inside as the way you show up in the world. There’s no gap or mismatch between what you say you stand for and how you actually show up day-to-day. When you are congruent, people experience you as genuine and straightforward because what they see is what they get.
Congruence links directly to your core values
Your core values are at the heart of congruence. Core values are the fundamental beliefs that guide your attitudes and actions. They represent what is most important to you. To be congruent, you first need to understand what your values actually are. Without this clarity, it’s difficult to intentionally align your behaviour with them.
If you value honesty, congruent behaviour would involve speaking truthfully, even when it’s uncomfortable.
If you value fairness, your decisions around resource allocation or recognition would reflect that principle consistently.
When your actions are misaligned with your values, you experience incongruence, which can manifest itself as stress, dissatisfaction, or a feeling of being inauthentic.
Why congruence makes a real difference
Leading with congruence a number of benefits for you and for the people you lead:
Congruence builds trust: when your team sees that your actions and behaviour consistently match your words and values, they learn they can rely on you. Your consistency creates a stable and predictable environment, which is foundational for psychological safety and high-performing team dynamics. People know where they stand with a congruent leader.
Congruence makes you authentic: it’s exhausting if you’re trying to be someone you’re not, or saying one thing while believing another. It creates internal conflict and can even lead to burnout. When you lead from a place of congruence, you bring your whole self to your role. This authenticity is more sustainable for you, and it gives other people permission to be more themselves too.
Congruence fortifies your resilience: when your decisions and actions stem from your core values, it gives you a solid foundation to stand on when things are hard. It helps you to make difficult choices with greater clarity and conviction because you are guided by an internal compass that stays steady despite external circumstances. This inner alignment helps you move through setbacks more consciously and compassionately.
Congruence amplifies your personal impact: when your communication is clear and consistent with your inner state, your message carries more weight. People are more likely to listen to and be influenced by someone they perceive as genuine and principled.
Emotion link
As an added bonus, congruence plays a significant part in your ability to effectively manage and regulate your emotions. When your actions are out of step with your inner feelings or values, it often creates a sense of tension and unease. This inner discord can make it much harder to respond to situations in a calm and thoughtful way.
When you act in alignment with yourself, you experience more inner peace and stability. This makes it easier to acknowledge and notice your emotions without being overwhelmed by them, which regulates your emotions, and helps you respond in a more measured and appropriate way. This is especially effective when you feel under pressure.
Practical steps to build more congruence
Developing your congruence is an ongoing process and practice of self-awareness and intentional action. Here are a few ways to get started:
Identify your core values: take some time to reflect on this. What principles are truly non-negotiable for you? What do you stand for? Write them down. You might consider times when you felt proud or deeply satisfied: what values were you fulfilling then?
Examine your actions: regularly review your recent decisions and behaviours. Ask yourself: ‘Do my actions line up with my stated values?’ Be honest with yourself. Where are the alignments? Where are the gaps?
Seek honest feedback: we very often have blind spots. Ask trusted colleagues or a mentor for their observations on how your actions come across and whether they see consistency between what you say and what you do. Prepare yourself to listen openly to what they share, even when it’s hard to hear. This is usually a sign of valuable feedback in this context.
Make conscious choices: when facing a decision, pause and consider how each option aligns with your core values. Intentionally choose the path that is most aligned with your values, even if it’s not the easiest option.
Check in with yourself: I like to write my answers to different prompts in a journal to get some insight on this. Questions might include: How am I feeling? Are there any internal conflicts or discomforts? These can often flag misalignment between your values and your actions.
Living and leading with congruence means committing to aligning who you are with what you do. It’s about showing up consistently and genuinely.
The more congruent you become, the more authentic and resilient your leadership will be, and the greater your positive influence on those around you. It’s a key element in building a leadership style that achieves results and feels right from the inside out.
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Dr Sarah Whyte is a keynote speaker, workshop facilitator, counsellor and coach.
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