Authentic Leadership:
The Hidden Cost of Faking It

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE:  You’ve built a career on strength, adaptability, and delivering results. But at some point, the weight of your “game face” becomes too heavy to bear. The pressure to perform, to project confidence even when you don’t feel it, is exhausting. What if restoring your energy didn’t require more effort – just more authentic leadership?

Quick Summary:

• Lack of authentic leadership creates and perpetuates burnout
• Research shows that “faking it” depletes the willpower required to make real progress
• This depletion of willpower leads to errors of judgment and behavior
• However, authentic leadership also requires responsibility and restraint

Go Deeper:

I recently wrote about Leadership Burnout being a core contributor to Imposter Syndrome, sharing that you may think the answer is to put on your game face and attempt to power through. However, “self-presentation”, or faking it, is one of the most depleting things you can do, and perpetuates the cycle of burnout.

Why does authentic leadership matter?

The first, and to me, most interesting, reason is that authenticity is efficient. Authentic leadership preserves the finite emotional, mental, and physical resources you need to lead.

Baumeister and Vohs’ research (Baumeister, Vohs et al., Self-Regulation and Self-Presentation, 2000) shows that “effortful self-presentation” – trying to manage how others see us, especially in ways that don’t come naturally – depletes our internal resources. It makes us less capable of focusing, solving problems, and regulating ourselves. The more we try to “project” an image rather than simply lead from who we are, the more we erode the very capacity we need to lead effectively.

In short: faking it is exhausting, it makes everything harder – and it makes us worse at everything else. 

An example: you lead a presentation wearing your game face. You lack the conviction you’re displaying, but it feels necessary. You say words you don’t mean, and hope you’re convincing. You hold your tongue. It’s exhausting – but you get through. You head back to your office, bark at the first safe person you meet, and send an email you immediately regret. You say too much or share inappropriately. You wonder what’s wrong with you.

There is nothing wrong with you. This is normal “self-presentation” backlash. The willpower spent on maintaining a façade was no longer available when you truly needed it.

A typical example would be any glorified public figure who is later involved in a scandal. We see this repeatedly, and this loss of self-control is called “ego depletion”. All the effort used to make an unrealistically positive impression led to errors of judgment and self-control. I don’t judge this. I just notice it.

At the same time, authentic leadership is not an excuse for acting out. Strong leadership requires emotional maturity and awareness of your impact on others. Authentic leadership isn’t about venting frustrations, discharging your anxiety across the organization, or discarding professionalism – it’s about aligning your leadership with your values, so you’re not expending unnecessary energy on maintaining a façade. 

The more authentic you are as a leader, to the degree it’s possible, the more stamina you will have for your actual work.

Faking it is something I see leaders think they get away with until around the age of 37. Then it becomes too heavy to bear – and it stops working. Continuing this way is possible but exhausting, unconvincing, and ineffective. But what to do when the old way stops working?

The only answer is self-knowledge. It is the key to authentic leadership. To know who you are as a leader – and to be that on purpose. It is the only way to lead sustainably in the second half of life, and if you’d like to get a head start on yourself instead of waiting to hit the wall, that’s an option too. 

There are additional reasons authentic leadership matters, however I will stick with this for now. In future I will write on Authenticity and Legacy, and Authenticity and Presence, so if you’re interested in these topics follow me. 

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I work with CEOs who are ready to know who they are, and be that on purpose. Request your consultation →

This guide reflects Katherine Hosie‘s CEO Coaching observations developed over two decades at Powerhouse Coaching. Based in Greenwich, CT | 12 years in San Francisco & Silicon Valley | CEO Coaching nationally.

Personal note: One of my favorite documentaries is My Architect about the life of Louis Kahn, who ultimately created some truly timeless buildings. Something he said to his students, that resounded and that I hold true, was this.

“… When you want to give something presence, you have to consult nature. And this is where design comes in. If you think of brick, for instance, you say to brick, what do you want, brick? And brick says to you, I’d like an arch. 

And if you say to brick, look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that, brick? 

Brick says, I’d like an arch. 

And it’s important you see, that you honor the material that you use. You don’t bandy it around as though you said, well, we have a lot of material around, we can do it one way, we can do it another. It’s not true. You can only do it if you honor the brick, and glorify the brick, instead of just shortchanging it.” 

I share this because timelessness matters to me too. It is one of my core values. To create something timeless, we must honor the material – just as great architects do. Authentic leadership is no different: you must first know your true nature, then lead from it on purpose. And become that arch. 

References: Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., & Tice, D. M. (2000). Self-Regulation and Self-Presentation: Regulatory Resource Depletion Impairs Impression Management and Effortful Self-Presentation Depletes Regulatory Resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(3), 437–449.