On Performing vs. Leading

Recently I was sitting in the reception area of a large organisation, waiting for a meeting. I looked around, and almost everyone was dressed the same way. White or light blue shirts. Black, grey or dark navy trousers or skirt. Woman or man, it made no difference. I couldn't help thinking: is this what it takes to feel like you belong here?

"The opposite of belonging is fitting in." — Brené Brown

I think about this line more than almost any other quote I know, and not just in the context of belonging. It applies just as directly to leadership.

Fitting in, as Brown describes it, is about reading a room and becoming whoever that room seems to need. Belonging doesn't ask that of us. It asks us to show up as we already are, and trust that this is enough.

Most leaders I work with have spent years fitting in. Not because they lack skill or confidence, but because somewhere along the way they learned that leadership meant becoming a certain kind of person in the room, calmer, more decisive, less emotional, and less positive, more polished, whatever the room seemed to reward. So they rehearse. They walk into meetings having already decided who they need to be for the next hour, and they walk out having spent more energy managing that performance than leading the actual conversation.

I don't think that's leadership. I think it's a very good impression of leadership, and the two are not the same thing.

Leadership that belongs, rather than fits in, looks different. It's quieter, often, and it doesn't need to announce itself, because it isn't performing for the room, it's simply present in it. When you're not busy managing an impression, you have far more attention available for what's actually happening around you: the person who's gone quiet, the decision that's being avoided, the tension nobody has named. You lead from what you notice, not from what you're trying to project.

That shift rarely happens by accident. It starts with a more honest look at who you are, your strengths, your values, your patterns, your blind spots, and the ways you've learned to adapt yourself to the rooms you're in. Because before we can lead differently, we have to become curious about the person who's doing the leading.

That's the work at the heart of Becoming an Authentic Leader, and it's the part of this work I find most worth doing.

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