Authenticity Quiz

Time. There's never enough of it - especially when you're trying to build a culture where people are both passionately driven and sustainably productive. As a senior leader, you know that alignment doesn't happen by accident. But how do you create it without micromanaging or burning out yourself and your team?

The answer lies in a counterintuitive truth: your most powerful leadership comes not from doing more, but from who you are being. When you lead from authentic power rather than force, you naturally inspire the best in others without having to control every detail or burnout. 

This quiz is designed to give you insight into how you currently show up as a leader when facing increasingly challenging situations. There are no right or wrong answers here. You might notice yourself feeling defensive or judgmental about some questions - that's completely normal. The goal is simply to bring awareness to your patterns in handling difficulty, both when you're accessing your authentic power and when you're caught in reactive drama.

Ready to discover your authentic leadership style? Your honest responses will help illuminate your path to becoming the kind of leader who creates natural alignment and sustainable success.

What is your personal style when handling highly complex, high-stress situations with unpredictable dynamics?

You'll see several scenarios to respond to next: 

IAMX Authenticity Quiz
REPORT

Dear (name),

Thank you for taking the IAMX Authenticity Quiz! Your personalized results are below. Please click SUBMIT to receive these results via email.

Your Authenticity Profile:

Best Self: {best}%
Drama: {drama}%
Resilience: {resilience}

Just like a garden needs both sun and rain to thrive, authentic leadership requires both your Best Self (your centered, authentic power) and your Drama (those reactive human moments we all experience). Your scores aren't about "good" or "bad" – they're about discovering what balance between Best Self and Drama allows you to be resilient in the face of challenges and uncertainty.

What makes this fascinating? Your authentic power comes from the movement between these states. Your resilience develops not from eliminating Drama, but from learning to dance with it. This dance reveals something profound - the deeper you that exists beneath roles, labels, and the stories we tell about our experiences.

Leaders who suppress their Drama often end up less authentic and more stressed.

Instead, True Self Leadership is about embracing your whole experience - both your Best Self (your centered, responsive state) and your Drama (your reactive human moments). When you learn to dance between these states rather than fighting them, you discover your "IAM" - the central, transcendent energy that can both embody your Best Self AND welcome, include, and learn from your humanity through Drama. This authentic essence is whole and complete in itself, while also being deeply connected to the larger wholes you're part of, whether that's your work, family, faith, or community. When we interact from this authentic place - IAM to IAM - it creates what we call "IAMX": an exponential expansion of creativity, collaboration, and positive impact that can transform both individuals and organizations.

Now, from our authentic power, we can see more clearly, who we are, who others are, what might be possible, and most importantly - how to navigate challenging situations in ways where everyone can win. 

Here are some reflections you can use to decode your quiz results:

Best Self	Drama	Resilience	Notes
>50%	<50%	High	You're skillfully accessing your Best Self in challenging situations. Consider whether you're taking time to pause and learn from Drama when it arises - there may be wisdom there waiting to be discovered.
>50%	<50%	Low, Medium	While you're connecting well with your Best Self, your resilience suggests an opportunity to deepen your practice. Consider shifting some focus from operational tasks to exploring what Drama might teach you about strategic alignment and authentic leadership.
<50%	>50%	High	Your high resilience shows wisdom in working with Drama! You're balancing analysis, risk, strategy and learning well. Consider using this capacity to discover how Drama can reveal deeper dimensions of your Best Self.
<50%	>50%	Low, Medium	You're experiencing significant Drama - and that's perfectly human! Rather than seeing this as a problem, consider it an invitation to develop True Self Leadership skills. Learning to pause and create space between stimulus and response can transform Drama from a source of stress to a source of wisdom. This is exactly what we practice daily at IAMX.

 

Traditional Leadership Approaches

Traditional leadership development takes a one-dimensional approach: set goals, create plans, drive execution, and measure results. It treats organizations like machines that just need the right inputs and controls to produce desired outputs. This mechanical view not only leads to burnout but misses the profound opportunity that comes from integrating both Best Self and Drama in leadership. When people are seen as replaceable parts rather than whole beings capable of both centered power and human reactivity, we lose the creative potential that emerges from this dance.

How IAMX is Different

I see the world through the dual lenses of a software engineer and a holistic systems thinker. This rare combination allows me to bring both precision and organic wisdom to leadership development. I understand both the technical mindset of my clients and the natural rhythms that can transform their leadership.

I view organizations as living systems that mirror nature's patterns. Just as a garden needs both structure (like trellises and boundaries) and space to grow organically, I see that businesses need both disciplined frameworks and room for natural development. My garden metaphors aren't just analogies - they represent my fundamental understanding of how living systems actually work.

The IAMX Approach

What makes my IAMX approach distinct is its recognition that True Self Leadership emerges from integrating seemingly opposite approaches:

• Individual authenticity (Best Self) with collective wisdom from Drama
• Technical precision with intuitive knowing
• Drama as a teacher rather than something to eliminate
• Profitable growth with sustainable wellbeing

I'm not offering a traditional "either/or" approach to leadership. Instead, I'm showing leaders how to embrace the "both/and" - how to access their IAM essence that is both whole in itself and connected to larger wholes. This allows you to be powerful without being controlling, create alignment without forcing compliance, and drive results without sacrificing wellbeing.

Building On Your Authenticity Quiz Results

The biggest mistake I see leaders make isn't having too much drama or too little resilience - it's expecting perfection from themselves and others. When you judge yourself or your team for being human, you shut down the very qualities needed for innovation and growth: vulnerability, creativity, and authentic connection.

Here's the counterintuitive truth your quiz results reveal: You don't need more time - you need a different way of being. True leadership power comes from finding your unique balance of Best Self, Drama, and Resilience. This balance looks different for every leader because we each face different challenges and bring different strengths. What matters isn't achieving some ideal score, but developing the capacity to:

• Create space for strategic thinking when time feels scarce
• Build natural alignment without micromanaging
• Lead from authentic power rather than force
• Foster a culture where passion doesn't lead to burnout

Our Define Your True Self course is designed to help you master this integration of Best Self and Drama. Instead of adding more to your already full plate, you'll learn how to access your IAM essence - creating impact through presence rather than pressure. Participants experience not just improved metrics, but a fundamental shift in how they show up as leaders. Our results speak to this transformation:

• A doubling of their sense of being prepared for challenges
• 40% reduction in burnout through sustainable practices
• 77% increase in sense of control and choice (without controlling others)
• 117% improvement in balancing strategic and tactical demands

The cultural result? A culture where alignment happens naturally because people are connecting IAM to IAM rather than role to role, where drive comes from authentic engagement rather than force, and where Drama becomes a source of learning rather than something to overcome. These dynamics create the space to be the strategic leader your organization needs.

Whether your quiz results show you primarily in Best Self and wanting to learn more from Drama, or experiencing more Drama and seeking to build Resilience, the Define Your True Self course opens up new possibilities. You'll discover how True Self Leadership - leading from your Best Self while learning from Drama - creates sustainable success without sacrificing yourself or your team in the process.

Let's discuss how your unique Authenticity Profile can inform your leadership development journey. Schedule a call to explore your results in depth and discover how the the Define Your True Self course can help you access your IAM essence, creating the kind of culture and alignment you envision - where creativity (and time) expands exponentially through authentic connection.

Please schedule time to discuss your results!

--Karen