Identity and Leadership Style

A huge share of new CEOs flame out not because they’re bad at the job, but because they’re too loyal to their favorite version of themselves. You step into a new role, use the same style that once made you successful… and slowly realize it’s now holding you back.

So here’s the twist: your identity isn’t just “who you are on the inside.” It’s also the story other people quietly write about you based on what you consistently do. Colleagues start to “cast” you the way a director casts an actor: the fixer, the visionary, the diplomat, the bulldozer. Over time, those roles can harden into expectations that feel just as real as your own self-view—and just as limiting.

This is where things get tense. You might see yourself as principled and direct, while your team experiences you as rigid and dismissive. Both “identities” are operating at once: your internal narrative and their lived reality. Sustainable leadership lives in the space where those two versions of you are brought into conversation, not competition. The work isn’t to abandon your core, but to audit which parts of your leadership story still serve the room you’re actually in today.