The Quiet Crisis: What Happens When Leaders Lose Their Why

I am going through an identity crisis, so I stopped writing about leadership for a full year.

My words felt hollow, performative, disconnected from the reality of what I was feeling.

I had built a small but engaged following on LinkedIn, sharing reflections on leadership challenges and growth. People seemed to value what I had to say. But behind the screen, I was questioning everything. I was writing about leadership while secretly looking for an exit, and it made me feel like a fraud.

My leadership fire—once steady and strong—had dwindled to a barely hanging on flicker. And in that flicker, I faced my leadership identity crisis.

Maybe you know this flicker. Maybe you're experiencing it right now.

When Leaders Lose Their Why

Identity crises don't let you know when they are coming. They arrive silently, gradually, often disguised as normal fatigue or temporary frustration. But over time, certain symptoms become unmistakable:

Decision paralysis sets in. Without a clear sense of purpose, every choice feels arbitrary. Which direction should we go? Does it even matter? The weight of decisions becomes crushing when disconnected from a guiding "why."

Inspiration becomes performance. Your team meetings, once energized by authentic vision, now require acting skills. You find yourself reaching for motivational phrases that once flowed naturally but now feel scripted and hollow.

The gap between public and private narratives widens. What you say publicly about your leadership journey bears less and less resemblance to your internal dialogue. This gap breeds a corrosive sense of inauthenticity.

The future becomes foggy. Without purpose as your compass, you can't see beyond the immediate demands. Strategic thinking feels impossible when you've lost sight of what you're strategizing toward.

These symptoms create a cycle of paralyzation. The more disconnected you feel from your leadership purpose, the harder it becomes to engage in the very actions that might reconnect you.

And let's be honest about the emotional toll: shame, anxiety, and a unique type of loneliness that comes from leading others while feeling internally lost yourself.

The Dual Nature of a Flicker

That leadership flicker—that barely hanging on flame—deserves a closer look. Because there's something remarkable about that tiny flame that I've come to appreciate during my own identity crisis:

A flicker is both the last breath of a dying fire and the first breath of one being born.

This is where ruthless optimism enters the picture.

I identify as a "Ruthless Optimist" because I believe leadership requires both unflinching acknowledgment of reality's hard edges and an unwavering belief in possibility. This perspective becomes especially crucial during an identity crisis.

Ruthless optimism means honest assessment without despair. It means saying: "My leadership fire is down to a flicker. This is real. And this flicker can either be the end or the beginning."

The choice—to let the fire die or to nurse it back to strength—belongs entirely to you.

Finding Your Way Back to Why

My journey back to purpose didn't happen in a single dramatic moment. It unfolded gradually through intentional practices that I now recognize as a path others might follow:

1. Create Space for Honest Dialogue—With Yourself First

Leadership identity crises demand internal honesty before external solutions. I began with journaling exercises that forced me to confront uncomfortable questions:

• When did I last feel truly aligned with my leadership purpose?

• What aspects of leadership still energize me, even now?

• If all external pressures and expectations disappeared, what would I want my leadership legacy to be?

• What am I afraid would happen if I acknowledged my struggles publicly?

• Is this a sign that it's time to move on to something new?

These questions didn't yield immediate clarity, but they created space for authenticity that had been missing.

2. Reconnect With the Humans You Serve

As a leader, your purpose should always connect back to people. When you lose your "why", return to your "who".

Schedule conversations with team members, students, and colleagues with one goal: to listen without agenda. Not to solve problems or demonstrate leadership, but simply to understand their experiences. These conversations revealed something critical—the impact of my work continues even when my internal sense of purpose wavered.

Sometimes your why is preserved in the people you serve even when it's lost within yourself.

3. Move From Nouns to Verbs

Identity crises often come from focusing too much on nouns—your position, title, knowledge, or status. The way forward involves shifting to verbs—the actual practice of leadership.

I created a simple daily practice: identifying one leadership action I could take authentically, without performance. Some days this was as small as a genuine check-in with a colleague or making a decision I'd been avoiding. Other days it meant having a difficult conversation or articulating a vision I was still coming to believe in myself.

Action precedes motivation more often than we care to admit. The practice of leadership can rekindle the purpose of leadership.

4. Create Your "Board of Ruthless Optimists"

No leader rediscovers their purpose in isolation. I deliberately sought out other leaders who embodied ruthless optimism—those rare individuals who would neither allow me to wallow in despair nor pressure me to adopt toxic positivity.

These conversations provided a necessary perspective. They helped me distinguish between a true purpose crisis and a temporary period of challenge or burnout. They reminded me of strengths I had forgotten and offered perspectives I couldn't see from within my own experience.

Your personal board should include people who know you well enough to be honest but respect you enough to believe in your capacity for renewal.

Creating Constellations

As my leadership fire began to strengthen again, I gained a new appreciation for what I call "creating constellations" in leadership. True leadership isn't about being the brightest star, but about connecting talented individuals within your organization to navigate through chaos and uncertainty.

During an identity crisis, your team's collective purpose can temporarily sustain what you've lost individually. This isn't abdication—it's interdependence. It's recognizing that while your personal flame flickers, others around you maintain their fire, and together you continue to generate light.

Some practical approaches to constellation building include:

• Facilitate purpose conversations among your team. Create structured opportunities for team members to articulate their own why and see how it connects to the collective mission.

• Distribute leadership opportunities strategically. Identify team members whose sense of purpose remains strong and create opportunities for them to lead initiatives aligned with their strengths.

• Practice radical transparency about the journey. You don't need to broadcast your identity crisis to everyone, but selective vulnerability with trusted team members creates space for authentic support and shared growth.

• Document impact stories. Collect and share concrete examples of how your team's work affects those you serve. These stories become touchstones of meaning during periods of purpose disconnection.

This constellation approach ensures that the organization's direction doesn't depend solely on your individual flame. It creates resilience and shared ownership that benefits everyone, even after your own sense of purpose begins to return. This is the true power of distributive leadership.

From Flicker to Flame

The leadership identity crisis—that painful period when your why becomes a whisper—may be one of the most valuable experiences in your leadership journey. It strips away performance and forces a reckoning with what truly matters.

My own period of questioning led to a leadership purpose both simpler and more profound than what came before. I emerged with a greater clarity that leadership, at its core, is about serving people with intention, courage, and purpose. Not metrics, not recognition, not abstract organizational goals—people. Actual living, breathing, emotional, unique, hardworking, well-meaning humans.

If you're in that flickering place right now, know this: The flicker is not the end unless you choose to make it so. With attention and care, it can become the first spark of a more authentic leadership fire than you've ever known.

Leadership is fundamentally about moving people from knowledge to action, from nouns to verbs. Sometimes the first person who needs that movement is you.

What small action might you take today to nurture your flickering why back into a raging flame?

This post marks my return to writing about leadership after a year-long hiatus. I'd love to hear about your experiences with leadership purpose—whether you're in a season of clarity or questioning. Comment below or reach out directly to continue the conversation.