Authentic, or Just Stuck? The Authenticity Paradox in Leadership
Think about the last time you were promoted, or moved into a role that asked more of you than the last one did. What got you there was probably real: your directness, your ability to get things done, your instinct to listen before speaking. Then the job changed, and some of what had worked started to stall. Perhaps you noticed a pattern you couldn’t quite name, or a sense that your team had gone quiet around you.
Herminia Ibarra, professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School, calls this moment the authenticity paradox. Her core observation is simple and uncomfortable: what got you here won’t get you there. The strengths that carried you through earlier stages can become the very things that limit you at the next one.
Why it feels so hard to change
At transition points, the instinct is to hold on to what you know. Your skills and habits are bound up with your sense of who you are, so letting them go feels inauthentic. Changing how you lead can seem like pretending to be someone else.
That is the paradox. Being authentic can mean staying exactly as you are. But authenticity can also be a comfortable name for rigidity.
Ibarra asks which self we mean when we say “be yourself”: the one you have always been, or the one you are becoming? If authenticity only means being who you have always been, it can lock you in place. Sincerity still matters: say what you mean and mean what you say. But effective communication means tailoring your message to the people in front of you. Being true to your values doesn’t require behaving the same way in every room.
Self-promotion is where it bites hardest
Many leaders, and many women in particular, were taught that good work speaks for itself. At the next level, it doesn’t. Senior leaders need to know what you have done, what you think, and what you need from them. Not making that visible isn’t modesty. It’s a blind spot, and it has a cost.
Self-promotion feels inauthentic for the same reason change does: it asks you to be seen in a way that feels unfamiliar. But if you avoid it because it feels unfamiliar, you are being your most cautious self, not your most authentic one.
Two ways of influencing a conversation
Most leaders have two broad ways of shaping a conversation. One is to move things forward: give a view, share what you know, test an assumption. The other is to help people think and feel their way to a decision: ask what sits behind a position, name the feeling in the room, build someone’s confidence.
Neither is better. Each is a tool, and every leader has a default. Problems usually arise when we rely on one and never reach for the other.
Where personality comes in
In my work with teams and one-to-one coachees, I’ve noticed patterns that line up with Enneagram types. Each type has a line of stretch, the direction its growth takes it, and a line of release, the direction in which its strengths open up. These lenses help with self-promotion, because the same person can promote themselves very differently depending on which direction they’re moving in.
Type 8: from direct to informed, and from strong to generous
Type 8s are often the most direct people in the room, and their strength is taking responsibility and driving things forward. Self-promotion can feel like a fight they don’t want to have.
On its line of stretch, towards type 5, an 8 becomes more reflective. It gathers what it has learned and lets that shape how it speaks about its work:
“Our customer numbers turned around this year. I’ve looked closely at why, and three people did the detailed work that made it happen. I want the board to hear what they found from me, because it changes what we should commit to next year.”
That is still a bold move. It puts the leader’s judgement in front of the people deciding, and it makes the self-promotion about insight rather than image.
On its line of release, towards type 2, an 8 lets its heart show. It acknowledges the best in others, and its natural generosity comes through. Self-promotion here sounds like gratitude that also names the leader’s part:
“Three people made this turnaround happen, and they did it better than I could have. I’m proud to have backed them, and I want the board to hear how they did it.”
The leader is still visible, but the credit is shared, and the relationships are stronger for it.
Type 2: owning the achievement, and asking plainly
Type 2s are generous, attentive and quick to see what others need. Their strength is connection, and self-promotion can feel like taking attention away from the people they’re helping.
On its line of stretch, towards type 4, a 2 learns to own its achievements as its own:
“I led the restructuring. The team did the detailed work, and I’d like to talk about the decision I made and what it cost me.”
That is an honest claim, and it doesn’t ask anyone to see the leader as less generous.
On its line of release, towards type 8, a 2 can say what it needs without apology. The strength of an 8 is standing behind its own position, and a 2 who borrows that can ask plainly:
“I’d like to be considered for the head of function role. Can we talk about what it would take?”
These are illustrations, not fixed rules. The same leader can move along either line depending on pressure, support and context.
What this looked like in practice
I worked with a senior female leader in banking. Her iEQ9 profile was strongly type 8: decisive, direct and driven by getting things done. She was the person her organisation turned to when something needed to move, and that strength had carried her a long way. It was also starting to cost her. Her team was pushing back quietly, and she was finding it harder to secure the senior access she needed.
We did not try to change who she was. We looked at how she was influencing conversations, and when. She was very good at deciding and challenging, and rarely drew people out or backed them. Over time, she began asking more open questions before deciding, and naming what she noticed in the room rather than assuming it. She did not become softer. She became a leader who could choose.
Her team’s engagement scores rose significantly over the following year, and she has since built stronger relationships with the senior leaders she needed to reach. The change was not in her personality. It was in her access to the other half of the toolkit.
Why you can’t think your way out of it
Ibarra’s argument is that you cannot reflect your way out of the authenticity paradox. Insight alone rarely changes behaviour. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking about yourself.
That means experimenting. Try a new way of talking about your work in a low-stakes meeting, notice what happens, and learn from it. Ibarra describes authenticity less as a fixed state and more as a lifelong process of trying things, seeing what fits, and adjusting. If you treat each attempt as a small prototype rather than a test of who you really are, the stakes drop and the learning speeds up.
Two things to try this week
First, notice your default. Over one meeting, notice how you describe your own work. Do you lead with the result, or with the team? Do you wait to be asked?
Second, choose on purpose. Before you talk about your work, ask what the people deciding need to know. Then say it plainly, even if it isn’t your comfort zone.
The leaders I see doing this well, whatever their type, can make their contribution visible without losing who they are. That isn’t becoming a different person. It is becoming a more complete one, and the self you are growing into is still you.