It started simply enough: a young, energetic employee came in to present work to the CEO. But as soon as the employee left, the CEO slumped back and whispered to me, “I’m exhausted by these people. What do they want from me? I can’t do this.”
Another CEO, minutes before reviewing new ideas from a passionate team, asked, “What do I do if I don’t like their ideas? How do they expect me to show up? I feel like I never do this right.”
You’d know both these leaders. You’ve seen their faces on magazine covers. Not only have they led category-defining companies, but their own employees are also bona fide fans. They have experience, but nothing can prepare you for the psychological weight of being a living symbol.
We often assume visibility and adulation are rewards, but as I’ve coached executives at hundreds of organizations, I’ve found that they create a trap. Every leader, but especially those who rise quickly or gain media attention, struggles under the unbearable myth of the leader they’re supposed to be. They may be highly skilled, driven, even exceptional — but ultimately, they’re only human.
So when I work with leaders who are struggling between the myth and their own humanity, I explore it with them in four steps: naming the myth, locating the fear, sharing the burden and crossing the river.
Name the myth
Almost every leader I work with is operating against an internal image of who they are supposed to be. It’s rarely something they chose. More often, it’s something they absorbed over time. Until it’s named, it quietly runs the room.
So the first thing I try to do is slow the moment down. I start by asking leaders to look directly at the version of themselves they think the role requires.
- When people talk about “leadership presence,” what do you think they’re actually expecting from you?
- If you were doing this job wrong, what would that look like in your mind?
- Whose version of a “real leader” are you most trying not to disappoint?
I usually end this part with one question that lands a little harder: What is the trait you believe you can never show if you want to keep this role?
The answer to that question almost always reveals the myth. Not the leader they are, but the one they feel they’re failing at becoming.
Locate the fear
Once that image is visible, the next step is to understand why it has so much power. The tension leaders feel is rarely about any decision or meeting. It’s about who holds the gaze; who’s making a judgment; who they might let down.
So we try to locate where the fear actually lives.
- In whose eyes does failure feel most dangerous right now?
- When you imagine disappointing someone here, whom are you picturing?
- What criticism still lands faster or harder than you expect?
Sometimes I’ll ask one more question, if the room is quiet enough: What do you fear would become true about you if that person were disappointed?
This is usually where the pressure shifts. The fear stops being ambient and becomes specific. And once it’s specific, it’s already less total.
Share the burden
From there, we look at how the weight of all this is being carried. Many leaders are exhausted not by the decisions they have to make, but by the emotional load: the uncertainty, anxiety and expectations they’re silently absorbing. Often, without realizing they’ve taken it all on themselves.
So I ask a different kind of question.
- Who currently absorbs the emotional weight of your uncertainty, if anyone?
- Where do you put your doubt when it shows up?
- What pressure are you quietly protecting your team from?
And sometimes, more plainly: What would change if you stopped absorbing everyone else’s anxiety?
For many leaders, this is the first time they see their exhaustion not as a personal weakness, but as a pattern of behavior. One that can be shifted.
Cross the river
Only after all of that do I ask them to look forward. Not toward a better version of themselves, but toward what they might finally be able to put down.
I ask them to imagine this moment as a river they’re crossing.
- What belief about yourself no longer needs to come with you?
- What have you been carrying that once helped you, but now just weighs you down?
- On the other side of this crossing, what do you want to begin growing?
I usually end with one last question: What would leadership look like if it cost you less of yourself?
I’m not looking for an answer. I’m looking for what loosens when the question is finally allowed to exist.
Letting the myth go
You don’t have to be on the cover of a magazine to feel the pressure to be the perfect leader. All leaders struggle with the myth of who they’re meant to be. Toss in the pressure of a world that has no interest in remaining stable, and the identity crisis rises with each turbulent moment.
Letting the myth go doesn’t mean lowering the bar. It means putting it back where it belongs. Leadership was never meant to require constant self-erasure, emotional perfection or psychological overfunctioning. It was meant to be practiced by a person, not a symbol.
The irony is that the more tightly leaders cling to the myth, the less available they become. Their teams feel it. Conversations narrow. Risk goes unspoken. Decision-making slows, not because leaders don’t care, but because so much energy is spent managing how they are perceived.
The leaders who do the most durable work are rarely the ones who feel heroic. They are the ones who have learned to separate the role from the self, to share the emotional load rather than absorb it and to stay present even when certainty isn’t available. They aren’t trying to be impressive. They’re trying to be honest about what the moment requires.
The myth promises safety if you live up to it. In practice, it just makes leadership lonelier. Letting it go doesn’t make the work easier. But it makes it human again. And that turns out to be what most organizations were missing all along.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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