141: Who Are You As a Leader — And Did You Actually Decide That?

You've invested in leadership development programs. You've built skills. You've delivered results. But somewhere in all of that — nobody stopped to ask you the most important question: Who are you as a leader? And did you consciously decide that?

In this episode, Dr. Nicole opens a brand new four-part series on leadership identity — what it is, how it forms, and why examining it intentionally is one of the most strategic things a senior leader can do.

The question isn't whether your leadership identity is being written. It is. The question is whether you're the one writing it.

In this episode:

• What leadership identity actually is — and why it's not the same as your leadership brand
• Why your leadership identity is already shaping every professional decision you make
• How the greatest leaders evolve intentionally — and what happens when you let external forces do the shaping instead
• A preview of what's coming in this four-part series

Resources from this episode:

Elite Leader Experience: https://www.thechangedoc.com/leader

Watch Road to 55 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thechangedoc

Transcript

The Missing Question In Leadership Programs

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want you to think about the last leadership development program that you went through. Maybe it was something that your company offered, maybe it was an executive education course, maybe it was a cohort program or a mentorship initiative or a workshop. Something that was designed intentionally to make you a better leader. Now, I want you to think about what they covered. Maybe they covered communication, maybe they covered strategy, managing conflict, executive presence, influencing without authority, building high-performing teams. It's all good content, very useful content, but let me ask you something. Did any of it, any of it at all, ask you to stop and define who you are as a leader? Not what you do or how you perform, not how you're perceived, but who you are, what you value, what you stand for, what kind of leader you are deliberately choosing to become? I'm gonna guess that the answer is no. And I want to tell you today that this is not a small omission. That might be the most important conversation that has been missing from your entire leadership journey.

Why This Series Starts Here

SPEAKER_00 1:16

I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan. I'm an executive leadership psychologist and your host of Leading Her Introvert Way. And today we're starting something a little bit different. We're starting a four-part series on leadership identity, the foundation underneath everything else we're going to talk about this summer. So stay with me. Welcome back to Leading Her Introvert Way. I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan. I am an executive leadership psychologist, an executive coach, and a fellow introverted woman who has been navigating corporate spaces for a very, very long time. If you're new here, welcome. You actually picked a really good episode to start with. And if you've been with me for a while, you may have noticed that the last few episodes have felt a little different, a little more conversational, a little less, here are five steps to get promoted, and a little more, let's actually talk about this topic. That's intentional. And today I want to tell you exactly where we're going and why. So I want to be upfront with you, lady leader. We're starting a new series today. It's going to be four episodes, and the through line across all four of them is leadership identity. Now, I've been hosting this podcast for a while now. And if you've been listening, you know that a lot of what we talked about has been focused on your career advancement, how to get promoted, how to negotiate your salary, how to build visibility, how to make the moves that get you to the next level. And that content has been really important and all of it has mattered. So I stand behind it a hundred percent. But I also know that there's a deeper conversation that hasn't been happening enough on this show. Frankly, on social media or in any leadership development program that I'm aware of. It hasn't been happening enough anywhere. And that conversation is this. Before you talk about where you're going, you need to know who you are as a leader, deliberately, consciously, on your own terms. And that's what this series is about. So over the next four episodes, we're going to talk about leadership identity, what it is, and how it forms. We're also going to challenge some of the stories that are quietly keeping senior women like you stuck. And then we're going to get into what happens when who you think you are as a leader and how you're actually showing up are not the same thing. And then we're going to talk about what to do about it. But we start here with the foundation because everything else we're going to talk about in this series sits on top of this. And I don't want to build anything on a foundation that we haven't examined.

Thirty Years Without Identity Work

SPEAKER_00 4:16

So let me start with something honest. I have been on my leadership journey for 30 years. 30 years. And I have been through a number of different leadership programs inside organizations. I've participated in professional development outside of organizations. I've read books. I've attended conferences. I've done the cohorts. And in 30 years, not once, not one single time did anyone create space for me to stop and intentionally examine and shape my leadership identity. Not one program, not one manager, not one mentor. Nobody said to me, Hey, Nicole, let's talk about who you are as a leader, not what you're good at, not your performance ratings, who you are. What the hell do you stand for? What kind of leader are you choosing to become? And I want to say very clearly that that's a problem. That is a significant gap in how we develop ourselves as leaders. And for black introverted women specifically, women who are already navigating spaces that are different for them, that gap is even more costly. Because if nobody helps you define who you are, the environment will do it for you. And you may not like what it makes you into. So let's define it.

Defining Leadership Identity Without Jargon

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Let's do it simply, let's do it conversationally, no jargon. Your leadership identity is who you are as a leader. But it's more than a personality trait or a style label. It includes what you value, it includes how you choose to engage with the people that you lead. It includes the standards that you set for yourself, for your team, for the organizations you're willing to be a part of. It includes what you will do when you're in a position of authority and what you absolutely will not do, regardless of what's expected or what's convenient. Here's what I really want you to hear. Your leadership identity is not separate from who you are as a person. Now I know that we've been taught to compartmentalize, to leave home at the door, to be professional, which sometimes just means be a different person at work than you are everywhere else. But the truth is you can't separate who you are from how you lead. They are not two different things. They were never meant to be two different things. The values that you hold, the experiences that have shaped you, the leaders you've admired, and the ones who've made you say, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever lead like that. All of that is in the room with you every single time you show up as a leader. The question is whether you're aware of it. Now, here's something I've been sitting with lately, and it came from a very, very personal place.

The Road To 55 And Early Influences

SPEAKER_00 7:17

I am approaching my 55th birthday, and as a part of marking that milestone, I've been doing something I'm calling the road to 55. Three separate road trips where I'm reconnecting with some of my oldest and dearest friends, people who I've known and who've known me since junior high school and high school. And I've been sitting down with them on camera, asking them a couple of questions, including asking them to tell me about a leader who inspired them, and then tell me why. Every single person answered immediately, no hesitation, no, okay, let me think about that. They already knew right away. And here's what struck me very few of them talked about a manager, very few of them went straight to the workplace. One friend talked about his mother. He said that she was the matriarch of the family and that everything she did, she led with love. That's what he said. She led with love. And you could hear in his voice that it shaped him, that the way he thinks about leadership today, the standard that he holds himself to, it has his mother's fingerprints all over it. Another friend of mine described a woman she'd encountered in education years ago. What she valued about this leader was her empathy, the way she gave people space to make mistakes without making them feel like failures. The way that she saw people. I'll share more of these conversations on my YouTube channel. The actual road to 55 footage is actually there if you want to see it. But I'm telling you about this because of what I walked away understanding. Leadership identity doesn't begin when you get your first manager title. It begins long before that. It forms in the people that you watch, the environments you move through, the moments where someone leads you in a way that stays with you, and the moments where someone leads you so badly that you silently make a promise to never. You've been absorbing leadership your entire life in your family, in your community, in school, in church, in every single environment where someone was in a position of influence over you or someone you loved. And whether you know it or not, those experiences are alive in how you lead today. The question isn't whether your leadership identity has been forming, it has. It's been forming for decades. The question is: are you aware of it? And are you intentional about where it goes from here?

Evolving On Purpose Versus Eroding

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Here's the other thing that I want you to know. Leadership identity is not fixed. Thank goodness for that, frankly. But leadership identity, it evolves. And the greatest leaders, the ones who last, the ones who actually leave something behind, they evolve intentionally. I can tell you honestly that the leader I was 20 years ago looks very different from the leader that I am today. Different values have surfaced over time. I have different boundaries. In fact, my boundaries have gotten clearer. My understanding of what it means to actually invest in another person's growth that has deepened significantly over time. I am not the same leader and I don't want to be. But here's the danger. If you are not intentional about your own evolution as a leader, something else or someone else will drive it. Your environment will drive it. A difficult boss will drive it. The culture of an organization that was not built for you will drive it. And fear will drive it. And some of us, if we're being really honest, have allowed exactly that to happen to us already. We've let the bitterness of a toxic environment harden us in ways we didn't choose. Or we've let a bad leader push us so far outside of who we actually are that we barely recognize ourselves at work anymore. We've let the marketplace tell us what to be instead of leading with what we already know, what we see, and what we want to build. That's not evolution, that's actually erosion. And I want more for you than that, lady leader.

Reclaiming Authorship Of Your Leadership

SPEAKER_00 11:53

So this series is about reclaiming the authorship of your leadership identity, understanding where it came from, examining the parts of it that are serving you and the parts that aren't. And making deliberate choices going forward about who you are choosing to be as a leader, not who your company needs you to be, not who fits the unwritten profile of what an executive looks like at your organization. You, deliberately, on your own terms.

What Is Coming Next In Series

SPEAKER_00 12:26

So here's where we're starting. Episode 141 today is the foundation. Leadership identity, what it is, how it forms, why it matters that you examine it on purpose. In our next episode, we're going to get into something that I think is going to challenge some of you. We're going to talk about fit, about this idea that so many senior women are carrying, that they don't fit, that you don't fit, that you don't belong in certain rooms or certain roles or certain titles. And I'm going to push back on that. And I'm going to push back hella hard because fit is a construct, it's a social construct. And I want to talk about whether it even belongs on your success criteria list. After that, we're going to talk about the soft life because I am hearing more and more women say that they don't want to pursue executive leadership. They want ease. They want rest. They want out. And I have thoughts about that too, specifically about whether that's a genuine choice or whether it's something else entirely wearing a very appealing outfit. And we're going to close this series by talking about the difference between your leadership identity and your leadership brand and what it costs you when those two things are out of alignment. Four episodes in this series, one through line. And it starts

Coaching Invite And Where To Watch More

SPEAKER_00 13:53

here. Now, before I let you go, if what we talked about today is resonating with you, if you're sitting here with the question of who you actually are as a leader and whether you've been intentional about that, then I want to invite you to have a conversation with me. I work with managers, directors, and vice presidents in a 12-week one-on-one coaching experience called the Elite Leader Experience. And this work, leadership identity, how you show up, who you're becoming, this is exactly what we do together. If you're ready to have that conversation, then book a call with me at thechangedoc.com forward slash leader. The link is going to be in the show notes. I read every single message that I get from you. And if it's right for us to work together, we'll know. And if you want to see the road to 55 conversations I mentioned today, the actual footage from the road trips, my friends' answers to that question, and more about leadership, head over to my YouTube channel. I'll put the link for that in the show notes as well. I'm Dr. Nicole Bryan, Lady Leader. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, keep leading your introvert way.