Power Without the Performance: Redefining Authentic Leadership
- Linda Rhoads
- Nov 9
- 4 min read
Authentic leadership isn’t about acting the part.
It’s about clarity, emotional integrity, and presence that comes from within—not performance.
“I don’t want to be one of those people who takes a leadership role, puts on the ‘outfit,’ and becomes bossy.”
That line came from a client. She wasn’t returning to the workforce or climbing into her first leadership role—she was preparing to take her next step. She’d done the internal work. She’d earned trust and results. But she wasn’t sure how to step forward without stepping into someone else’s version of leadership.
She didn’t want to lose herself.
She didn’t want to be bossy, buttoned-up, or polished into something unrecognizable.
She wanted to lead from her own center—with presence, clarity, and power that felt true.
That’s what authentic leadership looks like. But it’s not always clear how to get there—especially for women who’ve been rewarded for adapting, pleasing, or managing perceptions to belong.7
The Cost of Adapting
If you’ve been praised for reading the room, smoothing conflict, or downplaying your strength to avoid “intimidating” others, this will sound familiar.
I see it often in coaching: Women who wear professionalism like armor.
They:
Default to email rather than deliver clear, in-the-moment feedback.
Cushion truth to soften their presence—especially when they’re the only woman in the room.
Stay quiet even when their insight could shift the entire conversation.
Repeat organizational phrases that sound right but feel off.
And deeper still, many never define their leadership style for themselves.
They:
Don’t regularly assess their leadership strengths in action.
Don’t clarify how they want to feel and be experienced by others.
Don’t articulate values in areas like feedback, power-sharing, or decision-making.
In the absence of clarity, it’s easy to default to performance: dressing the part, following the dominant culture’s norms, or staying quiet in key moments to avoid being seen as “too much.”
This isn’t a lack of leadership—it’s what Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan, founders of the Immunity to Change approach, might call an adaptive strategy that has overstayed its welcome.
What once helped you succeed becomes an internalized script that limits your expression.
Here's what some of the best minds on the topic have found:
Emotional Labor as an Overused Strategy
Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence gave us language to describe a long-standing dynamic: tuning in to others, regulating our internal states, and adjusting to meet collective needs. This is a core leadership skill—but when it becomes reflexive and invisible, it crosses into emotional labor.
It becomes an overused strategy—one that’s expected, unacknowledged, and exhausting.
This form of self-monitoring is what psychologist Joan C. Williams describes as the "tightrope" women walk at work. Speak with authority and risk being labeled abrasive. Use diplomacy and risk being dismissed. We learn to thread the needle—carefully, constantly.
But here's the truth: Authentic leadership cannot thrive in a performance loop. It requires presence—not performance.
What Happens When We Perform Credibility
Brené Brown’s research on shame and belonging offers a powerful insight: when we armor up to avoid vulnerability, we disconnect—not only from others, but from ourselves.
That’s what happens when we perform credibility.
We:
Speak in a register that isn’t quite ours.
Edit our instincts to match what’s expected.
Avoid moments of friction instead of leading through them.
We lose the resonance that gives leadership its weight and clarity.
From Performance to Presence: Doing the Inner Work
This is where shadow work and inner alignment become essential.
Because the “performer” in you is not a flaw. She’s a part of you that once learned: If I show up a certain way, I’ll be accepted. I’ll be safe. She has a lot to share with you.
In Junian philosophy, when we explore what we’ve disowned—our boldness, our softness, our decisiveness—we reclaim wholeness. We shift from being a version of ourselves that “fits” to becoming leaders who lead with integrity.
And that shift doesn’t come from a new title or perfectly worded feedback. It comes from building a practice of alignment:
Noticing your signals—body, emotions, and intuition
Setting values-based boundaries instead of people-pleasing
Giving feedback from clarity, not compensation
Owning your tone without apology
This is where your authentic leadership lives.
Redefining Leadership on Your Terms
Clearly, this topic has been researched and written about. But only you can make the shift.
Authentic leadership doesn’t require abandoning your diplomacy. But it does require returning to yourself, again and again, until your voice feels like your own.
In my work with women leaders, we don’t create new performance scripts. Instead, with coaching support and tools, you create your own blueprint, rooted in integrity, presence, and a clear understanding of yourself. Together, we practice noticing what you do automatically and uncovering what you might choose to do differently, so your leadership reflects what feels true for you.
That’s when your leadership becomes both more honest and more powerful.
Next Steps
If you’ve been leading from performance and are ready to step back into alignment, The Reset was designed for you.
This 3-month coaching experience helps high-achieving women pause, realign, and reclaim a style of leadership that reflects who they really are—not the version they’ve been performing.
You don’t have to figure it out alone.
Let’s do this work together.
✨Or follow me on LinkedIn or visit The Soul Spot for more insights.
This post is part of Unlearning to Lead: Reclaiming the Way Forward for Women in Leadership—a blog series exploring the invisible rules many women carry, and what it takes to lead from authenticity instead of adaptation.
Linda coaches high-achieving women, drawing from 20+ years of leadership, including confidential executive advising and Chief of Staff roles. As a certified executive coach (PCC), she empowers women to move beyond self-doubt, cultivating leadership presence and sustainable rhythms for fulfillment.
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