Why Are We Treating the Leader and the Person Like Two Different People?

Okay I have to say something with my whole chest.

There's this assumption that's been baked into leadership development for so long that nobody questions it anymore. And it's this:

Personal development is something you do over there. Leadership development is something you do over here. And the two things are separate. Different. Not to be mixed.

And I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions in our industry. So let's talk about it.

Where this idea even came from

At some point someone decided that leadership was a professional thing and feelings were a personal thing. And professional things belong at work and personal things belong... somewhere else. Therapy, maybe. Or your journaling practice. Or that self-help book you read on vacation.

So leadership development became about skills, frameworks and strategy. And anything that touched on how a leader actually FEELS — about herself, about her decisions, about the gap between who she's becoming and who she actually wants to be — got quietly filed under "personal development" and sent somewhere else.

The result? A whole generation of women doing leadership development at work and personal development in their own time and wondering why neither of them is quite sticking.

And here's why. You cannot separate the leader from the person. They are the same human being. Walking into the same building. Making the same decisions. Carrying the same history into every meeting, every conversation, every moment that counts.

The leader IS the person. Always has been.

The misconception I want to clear up right now

When I talk about Self-Skills™ — self-awareness, self-compassion, self-acceptance, self-worth, self-regulation, self-care, self-trust— I can already hear what some of ya’ll are thinking.

"Is this therapy?"

Girl. No.

Here's the difference. Therapy looks at where your patterns came from. What happened in your past that created them. How to heal from that. It's incredibly valuable work and I am not here to diminish it.

Self-Skills™ work is about right now. How these patterns are showing up in your leadership today. In that meeting last Tuesday. In the decision you've been avoiding for three weeks. In the way you delivered feedback that didn't land the way you wanted it to.

We're not digging up your past. We're looking at your present. And figuring out what to do about it on Monday morning.

What this actually looks like

You don't have to lie on a couch. You don't have to talk about your childhood. You don't have to do anything that makes you feel like you're in a session with someone who's going to ask you how that makes you feel.

What you DO have to do is get honest about what's happening internally when you're leading. Not in a deep, excavate-your-soul way. In a practical, what's-actually-going-on-here way.

Like why do you keep avoiding that one conversation with your manager? Is it because you don't know what to say? Or is it because some part of you is scared that saying it will confirm something you're already afraid is true about you?

Or, why did you walk out of that presentation that went well and immediately start picking it apart? What would it mean to just let it be good?

Or, why do you keep saying yes to things you don't have capacity for? And what does it cost you every time you do?

These aren't therapy questions. These are leadership questions. Because how you answer them determines how you lead.

Personal development IS leadership development

Here's what I want you to take away from this.

The most effective leaders aren't the ones who've done the most leadership training and the most personal development separately. They're the ones who've figured out that they're the same thing.

Knowing yourself IS a leadership skill. Trusting yourself IS a leadership skill. Being able to regulate yourself under pressure, recover from a mistake without spiraling, lead from your values instead of your anxiety, all of it IS leadership development.

It just happens to also make you a better, happier, more grounded human being at the same time.

Which honestly? Should have been the point all along…

xo, Lindsey