Let’s Get Honest

If you think leadership is about looking like you’ve got it all together, you’ve already lost.

The world doesn’t need more polished professionals playing dress-up in corner offices. It needs leaders who can hold uncertainty without flinching, speak truth without posturing, and grow other people without shrinking their own presence.

But here’s the catch: you can’t do any of that if you’re hiding behind a persona you’ve outgrown.

That voice in your head saying, “What if they find out I’m not as capable as they think I am?” — it’s not impostor syndrome. It’s an unhealthy relationship with vulnerability and authenticity.

You don’t need a new mindset. You need to stop performing leadership and start being it.

The Leadership Lie

Somewhere along the way, confidence became the costume. We told ourselves that good leaders are decisive, unshakeable, and always composed.

But let’s be real: most of what passes for confidence in leadership is just a well-practised avoidance strategy. Behind it? Anxiety. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being seen. Fear of not being enough.

The Being Profile®, developed by Ashkan Tashvir, doesn’t diagnose or sugarcoat. It reflects. It shows leaders exactly where they’re living out of alignment with who they say they are. And most often, the biggest gaps show up in how they relate to vulnerability and authenticity.

Vulnerability Isn’t Cute — It’s Core

If you can’t be open — if you’re constantly protecting an image of capability — you’re not leading. You’re guarding.

Vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s what happens when you stop pretending. When you show up, share the truth, and invite others to do the same. When you’re no longer performing safety but actually creating it.

If your team doesn’t feel psychologically safe, it’s not because they’re too sensitive. It’s because they’ve learned that pretending is more rewarded than being real. And that starts at the top.

Authenticity Isn’t About Being “More You” — It’s About Being Honest:

Authenticity isn’t an aesthetic. It’s a discipline.

It’s your willingness to stop playing to the room and start living in alignment with your values. And not just when it’s convenient. When it’s costly. When it risks approval. When it asks more of you than surface-level transparency.

The Being Profile® reveals whether the version of you you’re putting into the world matches who you actually are. And that gap? That’s where the exhaustion lives. That’s where trust breaks. That’s where cultures fracture.

Let’s Call It What It Is

That thing you’re calling impostor syndrome? It’s not a mental flaw. It’s the cost of living too far from your own centre.

You’ve built competence. You’ve got experience. But if you’ve been rewarded for being guarded, you’ll confuse performance for presence. And over time, that erodes everything meaningful about the way you lead.

Want to Lead for Real?

Then get honest about how you relate to vulnerability. Get clear about whether you’re showing up in alignment, or just running the script that kept you safe in earlier seasons.

Leadership isn’t about appearing strong. It’s about being courageous enough to stay open.

And you can’t do that without learning how to close the gap between how you’re seen and who you truly are.

The Being Profile® helps you see that. Not as a judgement, but as a mirror.

Final Word

You don’t need to pretend to be a better leader.
You need to stop pretending. Full stop.

The performance, the polish, the curated image—it’s not helping you lead, it’s keeping you distant. You’re not building trust; you’re managing perception. And deep down, you know it’s costing you—your energy, your clarity, your team’s psychological safety, and your own sense of self.

Real leadership doesn’t come from mastering the optics. It comes from standing in the discomfort of not having it all together and choosing to show up anyway. It’s not about saying the right thing—it’s about saying the true thing. Especially when it’s messy. Especially when it matters.

The Being Profile® doesn’t care how good you look on paper. It reflects who you’re being when no one’s watching—and whether that version of you is actually aligned with the values you claim to lead by.

So here’s the invitation:
Drop the script.
Stop performing alignment and start embodying it.
Let your leadership be felt, not as authority, but as presence. Not as certainty, but as courage.

Because the kind of leadership that actually shifts culture and transforms people?
It’s not loud.
It’s not perfect.
But it’s real.

Start there. Stay there. That’s where the change lives.

Note: The Being Profile® is a registered trademark of Ashkan Tashvir and Engenesis. Learn more at beingprofile.com.