The Identity Trap: When the Role Consumes the Leader

June 20, 2025

Hi Reader

You used to be someone before you became someone “important”.

But when was the last time you remembered who that person was?

You used to have interests that had nothing to do with winning. Conversations that weren't about performance. Dreams that existed outside the scoreboard.

Now, when people ask what you do, you don't just describe your job, you become it.

"I’m the Sporting Director at XXXX FC" or "I’m the Performance Manager with XXXX or “I’m the Head Coach for xxx” and "I’m the CEO at XYZ RFC"

The words feel natural because somewhere along the way, the role stopped being something you do and became something you are.

And that's when the trap snapped shut.

Welcome to the most insidious burden of sports leadership: Identity Fusion

That’s the gradual disappearance of self into role until you can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins.

It feels like success. It looks like dedication. But it's actually the slow-motion destruction of the person who was talented enough to reach this level in the first place.

Sound familiar? There is another way......

Would you say you're a Legacy Leader?

Ok, so how would you rate yourself in that regard?

Don't miss this Free Legacy Leadership Scorecard; a simple five-minute online quiz that zeroes in on the crucial 6C Legacy Leadership Principles - Capability, Character, Competence, Care, Choices and Cause - and offers you a tailored report that could well identify some areas that are holding you back.

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The Seduction of Total Immersion

Sports culture glorifies complete commitment.

"Eat, sleep, breathe the game." "24/7 dedication." "Living and dying with every result."

You know how it is.

This messaging is intoxicating because it feels like the natural evolution of passion into purpose.

You tell yourself: "This isn't work…this is who I am."

But here's the psychological trap hidden in that thinking: When your identity becomes inseparable from your performance, your self-worth becomes hostage to circumstances beyond your control.

A top-level football sporting director once told me: "I realised, when a friend pointed it out, that I hadn't introduced myself by my actual name in a few years years. I was 'the Sporting Director' at the grocery store, at my kid's school, even to myself in the mirror."

He'd achieved everything he'd dreamed of professionally. But he'd lost something he didn't even realise was disappearing: himself.

It all happens oh so easily.

The Identity Warning Signs Most Leaders Miss

You've stopped talking about anything else - Your conversations naturally drift to work topics even in social settings. Not because you're obsessed, but because it's the only part of your identity that feels fully developed anymore.

Your mood follows team performance - A bad result doesn't just affect your professional satisfaction. It affects your fundamental sense of worth as a human being.

You can't remember your pre-leadership interests - When asked what you enjoy outside of work, you genuinely struggle to answer. Those interests didn't disappear, they were slowly crowded out by role demands.

Your relationships exist in your professional context - Most of your meaningful connections are work-related. Personal relationships feel shallow because you've forgotten how to engage as yourself rather than as your title.

You fear retirement or role change The thought of stepping down creates existential panic, not just career anxiety. Without the role, you're not sure who you would be.

A former Formula 1 team principal described this realisation: "I was sitting in a restaurant on vacation, and my wife asked what I was thinking about. I said 'strategy for next season.' She said, 'You've been on holiday for five days and haven't mentioned anything else.' That's when I realised I didn't have anything else to think about. I had become the job, and the job had become me."

The Hidden Cost of Identity Fusion

When your sense of self merges completely with your professional role, several psychological processes begin working against you:

Decision Paralysis: Every choice becomes existentially loaded. A tactical decision isn't just about performance. It becomes about whether you're worthy of your position. This emotional weight makes objective decision-making nearly impossible.

Innovation Blindness: Taking creative risks requires a sense of self that exists independent of outcomes. When your identity depends on being right, you become psychologically incapable of the experimentation that drives breakthrough thinking.

Relationship Deterioration: People need to connect with a person, not a position. When you bring only your professional identity to personal relationships, those relationships become transactional rather than meaningful.

Existential Fragility: Your entire sense of worth becomes dependent on factors beyond your control: player performance, board decisions, media coverage, results. This creates a psychological house of cards that collapses with the first significant setback.

Recovery Resistance: When failure is personal rather than professional, setbacks become identity threats rather than learning opportunities. This makes resilience and adaptation significantly more difficult.

The Legacy Leader's Identity Framework

But there is a better, sustainable and more rewarding way.

The leaders who sustain excellence while maintaining psychological health operate from a fundamentally different relationship with their role.

They don't try to separate work and life; they maintain identity independence within total professional commitment.

Advertising expert Dave Trott understood this principle: "The moment you become the message, you lose the ability to change the message."

Legacy Leaders recognise that their effectiveness comes from who they are, not what they do. Their role is an expression of their capabilities, not the source of their worth.

So, as always, here’s a few pointers toward a healthier path. And, as always, there’s a bit of homework….a bit of a pain but then again, you only get out what you put in.

The Three Identity Pillars

1. Core Self Definition This is who you are independent of your achievements, failures, or professional status. Your values, character traits, and fundamental nature that existed before your current role and will exist after it.

Your Exercise: Complete this sentence without mentioning your job, achievements, or professional relationships: "I am someone who..."

2. Capability Confidence This is trust in your transferable skills and abilities rather than your current position. The knowledge that what made you effective in this role would make you effective in other contexts.

Exercise: List five skills you've developed that would serve you well in completely different fields.

3. Future Identity This is a vision of who you want to become that transcends your current professional role. It's about growing as a person, not just advancing as a professional.

Exercise: Describe who you want to be in 5 & 10 years in terms that have nothing to do with your career trajectory.

The Separation Strategy That Works

I read a newsletter from Ben Settle regularly and he shared an insight applies perfectly here: "The strongest personal brand is one that exists independent of any single platform or position."

Creating identity independence requires intentional practice - here’s a few things to try….

The Identity Recovery Protocol

Start introducing yourself by your actual name in low-stakes situations. At coffee shops, casual conversations, social events. Notice how it feels to exist as a person rather than a position.

The Interest Archaeology Project

Deliberately reconnect with one pre-leadership interest. Not as a "hobby" but as a part of your identity that exists outside professional achievement. Spend time on it without any productivity agenda.

The Value Clarification Exercise

Identify three values that guide your decisions both professionally and personally. Notice how these values express themselves differently in different contexts but remain constant across your identity.

The Future Self Meditation

Spend just 10 minutes weekly imagining yourself after your current role ends. (It’s not like you don’t have this time on a commute!) But not in retirement, but in the next chapter of your life. What would you be proud of about who you became as a person, independent of what you achieved professionally?

The Integration Paradox

Here's the counterintuitive truth that changes everything: The more secure your sense of self outside your role, the more effective you become within it.

When your identity doesn't depend on professional outcomes, you can take bigger risks, make clearer decisions, and recover from setbacks more quickly.

You become paradoxically more committed to excellence because your commitment comes from choice rather than need.

A rugby performance director who implemented this approach told me: "The strangest thing happened when I stopped needing to be the Performance Director to feel valuable. I became a better Performance Director. My decisions got clearer because they weren't clouded by ego. My relationships improved because people were connecting with me, not my title."

The Daily Practice of Identity Independence

As we’ve talked about before, we’re only the sum of our habits. And crafting and nurturing new habits, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, is the path to positive change.

Give these a go….believe me, they work. I road-tested them myself!

Morning Identity Check: Before looking at your phone or diving into work, spend two minutes remembering who you are beyond your professional role.

Evening Value Reflection: End each day by identifying one way you expressed your core values outside of professional achievement.

Weekly Non-Work Engagement: Participate in one activity or conversation that has nothing to do with your professional identity.

Monthly Future Self Journaling: Write about who you're becoming as a person, not just what you're achieving professionally.

Reclaiming Yourself Without Losing Your Edge

The goal isn't to care less about your work. It's to ground your work in something larger than just professional success.

When your identity has multiple pillars, your professional performance becomes an expression of who you are rather than the basis of who you are.

This shift changes everything. Failures become learning opportunities rather than identity threats. Success becomes meaningful rather than addictive. Relationships become nourishing rather than transactional.

Human behaviour expert, Rory Sutherland, captures this perfectly: "The people who are least attached to any particular outcome are often most effective at achieving it."

Your role matters immensely. But it's not more important than the person doing the role.

Legacy Leaders understand that their greatest professional asset is maintaining access to the full human being who was capable of reaching this level in the first place.

Who were you before you became who you are now? And what would change if you remembered that person more often?

The work you do matters too much to let it consume the person capable of doing it exceptionally well.

Your identity is not your job title.

Your worth is not your win percentage.

Your value is not your position.

You are more than what you achieve. And remembering that might be the key to achieving more than you thought possible.

If you've been struggling with the feeling that you've lost yourself in your role, or if you recognise that your sense of worth has become dangerously dependent on professional outcomes, it would probably be good to talk. The strongest leaders know when they need perspective from someone who understands both the demands of sports leadership and the importance of maintaining the person beneath the position. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is remember who you were before you became who everyone expects you to be.

Book in a free Clarity Call today at https://calendly.com/p_clarke/20min