Some leaders you remember for all the right reasons. I know you know what I'm talking about.
Way, way back, I worked a few reporting levels below a Department Head who was ultimately responsible for a large-scale IT project. The project had burst its banks and was massively over time and over budget. Worse, it hadn't delivered a single thing. A total omnishambles.
One morning, with morale having fallen through rock-bottom into an ooze we didn't have a name for, he held his hands up and said:
"I've tried so many things to make this work, I don't know what else to do."
I don't know if he came into that meeting intending to drop the mask, abandon the politics and tell his truth, or if the tension in the meeting left him no other choice, but his face told the story.
That shifted everything. The top-down "order and execute" culture turned into collective ownership and collaboration.
What surprised me most was that the thing that sparked that change wasn’t planning, strategising, optimising or brainstorming.
It was feeling.
The Ones Who Feel Too Much
You know the type. Hell, you probably are the type.
You catch the micro-expression that flashes across someone's face in a meeting. You feel the shift in energy when bad news hasn't even been spoken yet. You lie awake replaying conversations, hearing every word that wasn’t said.
It's exhausting being this tuned in. You smile through the small talk while hoping for something deeper. Their forced laughter drains you but they’d never know it. You’re tired of adjusting yourself for others while inside you’re holding so much of the world.
You see the best in people and hope for real connection, but you find yourself wanting to be alone. Not because you dislike them, but because there are times you feel lonelier being around them.
Instead of rest or recovery, the quiet moments are when you reflect and feel the weight of it all. Your compassion hums, your thinking overflows, and your self-criticism stings.
None of this is weakness, none of it is evidence of flaws, and none of it means you don’t belong. It's just the burden of giving a damn and not giving up hope in a world where surface-level everything is becoming the norm.
You're Human, Not Broken
"Humans are creatures of deep contradiction, caught between the longing for connection and the fear of loss, the desire for freedom and the need for security." -Christopher Bollas
Every single one of us lives in this tension. There's no exemption for being a leader.
It's easy to interpret your contradictions as character flaws, or to feel the tension that pulls you in different directions and call it indecision or inexperience. Sometimes you believe it's evidence that you're not good enough to be a leader.
So you fight to stay upright on that tightrope between:
- Being decisive but still inclusive
- Holding authority but being approachable
- Keeping everyone happy while asking more and more from them
- Giving everything you've got at work and showing up fully at home
- Being visionary and pragmatic simultaneously
- Pushing hard for results while maintaining your values
- Providing clear direction and nurturing teams to find their own solutions
But the problem isn't the contradictions — which are just basic human truths — it's the thought that feeling them means you're somehow broken.
Assume for a moment those contradictions and tensions didn't exist. You have total consistency and constancy between thought and deed. No exceptions. That makes for a pretty good Terminator, but it would dull every edge you have as a leader.
It's the ability to hold opposing ideas simultaneously that's a marker of critical thinking and emotional intelligence. They give you range and depth, and allow you to respond to complex situations with nuance rather than rigid, one-dimensional approaches.
You're human, not broken, and the ability to hold contradictions is the very essence of mature leadership.
When Your Feelings Become Everyone's Reality
What they don't tell you about being a leader who feels deeply is that you don’t just carry your own emotions. You're a walking, talking emotional barometer for your entire team.
Walk into the office and you can sense when something’s off. In your weekly meeting it takes just moments for you to know someone is stressed. Talking with a peer, you pick up on what’s underneath and in between their words.
The unique burden of emotional leadership means this also goes the other way. You absorb the experience and emotions of others, process it through your own emotional universe, then broadcast or leak that out.
You're simultaneously the receiver, the processor, and the transmitter.
Some days, it feels like you're conducting an emotional orchestra where half the musicians can't see their sheet music and the other half are playing in different keys.
You have the responsibility of knowing that your bad day can quickly become everyone's bad day. That your uncertainty or second-guessing creates organisational anxiety. That your enthusiasm can lift an entire team and your doubt can sink it.
No pressure, right?
But here's the thing: pretending you don't feel these things doesn't make them go away. It just creates disconnection and distance from everyone else.
The choice then, is to turn it from a “unique burden” to a privilege.
The Freedom to Let Go
When every problem needs your attention, when you're across every single plate that's spinning, and when solving everyone's challenges feels like your personal mission, sooner or later you'll realise that the superhero cape you think you're wearing is actually an albatross dragging you ever downward.
The urge to control and carry it all is really just fear dressed up as duty.
You're terrified of being seen as a failure. Being judged. Blamed. Rejected.
Worse, if that happened, it would confirm the deeply painful fear that you're fundamentally flawed and unworthy.
And as time passes you lose the ability to see the bigger picture, your impact lessens, and you forget everything that made you not just effective, but glorious.
The breakthrough comes when you realise that letting go isn't being weak or giving up, it's growing up as a leader.
It's understanding that your real value isn't in being everywhere, but in choosing where you apply that value.
The Reason I Remember a Leader
The leaders I remember — the ones who truly made a difference — weren't the ones who had it all figured out. They were the ones brave enough to feel it all. To show up as a human in a world that rewards robots.
Your sensitivity isn't a bug to be fixed. Your complexity isn’t a flaw to be ironed out. Your emotional world isn’t weakness spilling over.
These are the very things that make you the kind of leader people actually want to follow. The kind they remember. The kind who changes things not despite feeling deeply, but because of it.