Preventing self-erasure in high functioning leaders

Leadership development training is an integral part of my work as a service transformation consultant. I get a close-up view of the leaders of a business. I come face to face with their highs, lows and in-betweens. While the low-functioning leaders respond to a straightforward improvement plan, the high-functioning leaders are an entirely different kettle of fish.

Outwardly, they are the most admired kids on the block. They move business mountains, mobilise employee populations and flash megawatt smiles.Inwardly, their struggles are real and hidden from public view. That’s the paradox with which they live.

I am intrigued by high-functioning leaders, especially those who appear to be flourishing. They amaze everyone with their sturdy resilience, their levity, the ease of their social chemistry and the slick way of balancing competing demands.

In my encounters, I’ve noticed that what the world sees is a leader accomplishing a million actions synchronously. What the world does not see is the underlying scaffolding that supports the public scenery. Sometimes the scaffolding is sturdy and at other times, it is a breath away from collapse.

Some high-functioning leaders are champions at balancing sheer competence with an almost infinite willpower to succeed. The latter force can be so powerful that some leaders become oblivious to the personal sacrifices being made in the name of meeting public expectations.

In many cases, sustaining a reputation for excellence and success becomes a prison (so to speak). These leaders set such a high bar for themselves that they become almost obsessed with keeping the bar intact. The price of achieving this goal can be enormous.

Some of these leaders become overwhelmed with passive anxiety. Because of their very public reputation for achievement, they choose not to show vulnerability. The heightened feelings of anxiety that accompany hierarchical demands have to exist behind closed doors. The invisible exhaustion that builds up becomes a constant companion. Addressing fatigue is deferred, because it’s simply an inconvenient time.

To high-functioning leaders, success is a two-edged sword. Its sweet taste is tinged with an addiction to achievement velocity. Not only is speedy execution a marker for success, but it also becomes the cornerstone upon which the leader’s reputation rests. The price of residency in this elite club is the sheer magnitude of the effort required to sustain a living legacy of brilliance.

The inconvenient truth is that despite the accolades, the burden of having to deliver to higher and higher levels of expectations, does take a toll. As a result, some of these leaders feel a sense of entrapment. Take the empathy paradox, for example. High-functioning leaders are expected to demonstrate an inexhaustible amount of empathy, yet, more often than not, their need for the same is seldom acknowledged. Everyone assumes that the “strong one” is okay. This is life in a world of camouflage.

So, what do I say to leaders who are on the high-functioning spectrum and feeling the invisible effects of legacy-building burnout?

Time to recast one’s identity beyond the frame of work-based success. Time to begin occupying spaces where appreciation is tied to the person, not only the business executive. If the leader is addicted to an adulation-dependency syndrome, I suggest a high-dosage cocktail that combines humility and awe at one’s good fortune.

It’s time to interrupt the endless round of sprinting to finishing lines by infusing recovery rituals that protect the high-functioning leaders from the perils of sustained invisible struggles. It’s also a time to drop the armour of invincibility and lean into a new quest that prioritises wellness, over self-erasure.