Dressing up for Halloween is a favorite of most kids, not to mention adults in search of a good party. To pretend to be someone or something else is a fun and refreshing game. You get to say and do things that you otherwise might not, all in the spirit of role playing into your character. Then after an evening of frivolity, you get to take off the costume and return to yourself. Fun, fun, fun.

But if you never take the costume off, the fun would quickly fade away. Which is precisely what happens to some people when they are put into leadership positions. They decide or read somewhere that they need to be different, so they put on their leadership costume, which in some cases looks nothing like them. The people around them are left to guess  who this person in the costume is, what matters to them and what they expect of others. Confusion reigns and our newly appointed leader is off to a sputtering start.

The problem is,  that in the process of transforming into the leader they think they should be, they lose the essence of the person that was appointed leader in the first place.  In other words, they lose their compass. Once we lose our personal compass, it becomes very difficult to guide, lead and direct others. Not to mention the intense dissonance we feel when we move away from our true selves.

Which is not to say that some changes are not necessary when we become leaders. Of course there are. As a matter of fact, those who do not change some things also struggle as new leaders. But these changes involve what we do and how we do things, not who we are at our core.

To change our core being is to put on a costume that can never be removed. If your leadership role requires such a costume, know that it is unsustainable and too high a price to pay.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 at 11:01 am and is filed under Career Advice, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.