Paper swans in different colours and a red bird flying in

106 – Authentic Leadership in Business: Avoiding Common Pitfalls with Anthony Garone

How’s that working for you?

That was the line in this conversation that cut through everything.

Not the talk about content.

Not the discussion about websites, messaging or B2B tech.

That question.

Because in one sentence, Anthony Garone got to the heart of what so many leaders and businesses are avoiding. They keep doing what they have always done, keep adding more noise, more effort, more features, more activity, and then wonder why the business still feels muddy, heavy or disconnected.

In this episode of Impactful Teamwork, I sat down with Anthony, founder of Edify Content, to talk about how B2B tech companies can create the sales and marketing content their teams need to win. But very quickly, this became a much bigger conversation about authenticity, leadership, hidden talent, and why some businesses struggle to articulate their value even when they are brilliant at what they do.

If you lead a scaling business, especially in tech, there is a lot in this episode that will challenge your thinking in all the right ways.

The real issue is not just your content, it is your clarity

One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that weak messaging is rarely just a marketing issue. More often, it is a symptom of something deeper. Businesses struggle to explain what they do because they are too close to their own assumptions, too tangled in their own language, or too disconnected from what actually matters to the people they want to serve.

Anthony shared how he discovered, almost by accident, that his real superpower was writing. After years in IT and software leadership, he realised that the thing people kept asking him to do was turn complexity into clarity. He could take complicated ideas, technical language and messy thinking, and shape them into something useful, compelling and easy to understand.

That is such an important reminder for leaders, because often the thing that makes you most valuable is not the thing on your job title. It is the thing that comes so naturally to you that you almost overlook it.

Leaders need to get better at spotting hidden brilliance

This part of the conversation really landed for me because it speaks to something I see all the time in teams. There is so much hidden talent sitting inside organisations, but it gets missed because leaders are only looking at people through the narrow lens of their role.

Anthony spoke about how important it is for leaders to really see their people as humans, not just employees. To notice what they are naturally brilliant at. To pay attention to the strengths that may not even be written into the job description. That matters because when people are given space to bring more of who they are to the work, their contribution changes. Their confidence changes. Their energy changes.

This aligns so strongly with what I believe about teamwork and leadership. If you want more ownership, more initiative and more impact from your people, you have to stop managing them like parts in a machine and start leading them like living human beings with talent, instinct and untapped potential. That is where purposeful alignment begins, and that is where teams start to build real momentum.

Authenticity is not soft, it is essential

Another powerful thread in this episode is authenticity, but not in the polished, performative way that word gets thrown around online. This was a much more honest conversation about what happens when leaders start playing the role of leader instead of actually being themselves.

Anthony made the point that many leaders get trapped by their own idea of what a CEO, founder or expert is supposed to look like. They put on the mask. They perform authority. They try to sound right, look right and fit the image. But in doing that, they lose something important. They lose the very thing that makes people trust them.

That matters more than ever right now because trust is not built through titles or image. It is built through congruence. Teams can feel when a leader is real, and they can also feel when they are hiding. Horses, of course, teach us this brilliantly because they respond to what is true, not what is presented. They do not care about the role. They care about the energy, the clarity and the authenticity behind it.

Sometimes the smartest move is subtraction

I loved Anthony’s challenge to the endless business obsession with more.

Be unreasonable

Anthony’s closing message was simple and provocative. Be unreasonable.

Not reckless. Not chaotic. But unwilling to settle for stale logic, tired formulas and a version of success that no longer feels true. Too many leaders are being “reasonable” in ways that are quietly draining the life out of their business. They keep going with things that are not working. They keep following advice that does not fit. They keep polishing the surface while ignoring the truth underneath.

This episode is an invitation to do something different.

To get honest.

To get clearer.

To stop hiding behind the role.

And to ask yourself the question that sits underneath all of it:

How’s that working for you?

What you’ll take away from this episode

You’ll hear why your greatest strength may be something you have overlooked because it comes too naturally to you.

You’ll be reminded that the people in your team may have untapped gifts that are never revealed if you only ever engage with their job title.

You’ll hear a powerful challenge around authenticity and why leadership becomes far more effective when you stop performing and start telling the truth.

And you’ll be invited to rethink whether the next breakthrough in your business comes from adding more, or from stripping away what no longer serves.

Listen to the full episode

If you are building a business, leading a team, or trying to communicate your value more clearly in a noisy world, this episode will give you plenty to reflect on.

It is sharp, thoughtful, a little provocative, and full of insight for leaders who are ready to stop doing leadership the old way.

Go and listen.

Then be unreasonable enough to change what is no longer working.