The world is chock-full of posers. People pretending to be someone or something they aren’t in the pursuit of a payoff. Sometimes the payoff is real, other times it exists only as an aspiration. Whichever it is does not matter, so long as the poser believes it to be real.
There are lots of posers in the business world. They pretend to be completely comfortable with their positions of power and leadership, like they were destined to be there. They are confident, independent and actualized. They hard-charge their way from challenge to challenge with nary breaking a sweat. They cast the aura that they were born for this stuff. For so many executives, it is little more than a pose.
I have known and coached hundreds of leaders in my career. Some of them climbed to the highest echelons of business success. They earned wealth, prestige and gargantuan levels of stress. Then one day, they realize that they have no idea how they got there. Sure they worked hard, but so did lots of others. What made them so special, they wonder.
Then it dawns on them. Someone must have made a mistake. They fret that it is only a matter of time until they are discovered and outed. This is where the posing comes in. They believe in the spirit of the Madison Ave. fueled adage to “never let them see you sweat.” So they begin to pose. They pose with their boss, employees, friends, family and worst of all, themselves. They dare not show weakness, vulnerability or a soft under-belly, for fear of a knife plunge.
All the while they lose themselves. It happens little by little, piece by piece, time after time. One day, they wake up and forget “who they were” before they became “who they are.” In a moment of existential clarity, they realize that the ride is no longer worth it if you can’t bring yourself along.
Pretending is powerful stuff. It is the ability that helped transport you through childhood as you dreamed your biggest dreams. But it has a dark side when it comes to managing your career. When you were a kid, the pretending ended and then you resumed. If you pretend your way to advancement in business, there is no going back.
Of course you need to develop and challenge yourself throughout your career. If you do not, you will not succeed. But you should not change who you are at the core of your inmost being. You can try, but I hope for your sake you fail. Find success that leverages the best of who you are and you will be genuinely successful.