23 Vital Signs You Have New Leader Identity Grief

You wanted the promotion. You worked for it. You earned it. And now that you have it, something feels deeply, inexplicably wrong. Not with the job itself, but with you. The person you were before the title changed feels like a stranger, and the person you are supposed to become has not arrived yet. You are stuck in an uncomfortable middle, grieving a version of yourself that nobody told you would disappear.

This is the grief nobody warns you about when you become a leader. It is not the grief of losing a loved one or enduring a personal tragedy. It is the quiet, disorienting loss of identity that happens when you move from being one of the team to being the person responsible for the team. Research from Wharton Executive Education estimates that up to 60 percent of new managers fail or significantly underperform in their first 24 months. Not because they lack intelligence or technical skill, but because nobody prepared them for the psychological earthquake of becoming a leader.

Gallup has found that workplace loneliness affects more than half of all workers, but the experience is particularly acute for those who have just stepped into leadership. Over 70 percent of senior leaders and CEOs report feelings of loneliness, and research consistently shows that between 70 and 82 percent of leaders experience imposter syndrome at some point. Meanwhile, organisational psychologists note that it takes an average of 6 to 12 months for a new manager to fully shed their individual contributor identity and comfortably inhabit their leadership identity.

If you are in that painful middle right now, this guide is for you. What follows are 23 vital signs that you are experiencing new leader identity grief, along with practical strategies for navigating each one. These are organised into seven categories that address the full emotional landscape of becoming a leader, from the friendships that shift to the confidence that wavers to the loneliness that nobody told you was coming.

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author of Step Up or Step Out, and leadership consultant who works with schools, corporates, and nonprofits around the world. He facilitates workshops, delivers keynotes, and runs executive team offsites designed to help leaders and teams navigate exactly these kinds of transitions. To book Jonno for your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Why New Leader Identity Grief Matters

William Bridges, the organisational psychologist who developed the Transitions Model, drew a critical distinction between change and transition. Change is situational: a new title, a new office, a new reporting line. Transition is psychological: the internal process of letting go of an old identity, navigating a confusing middle ground, and eventually stepping into a new beginning. Most organisations invest heavily in the change side of leadership transitions. They announce the promotion, update the org chart, and maybe provide a half day of manager training. Almost none invest in the transition side, the emotional and identity work that determines whether that new leader thrives or quietly drowns.

The cost of ignoring this is staggering. When new leaders burn out, disengage, or fail, organisations lose their best technical performers and gain an ineffective manager in the same move. Teams lose trust in leadership decisions. Culture erodes. The leader themselves often carries shame and confusion that can follow them for years. The "conscious unbossing" trend, where younger professionals deliberately avoid management roles due to stress and lack of support, is a direct consequence of organisations failing to acknowledge the grief of becoming a leader.

Jonno White delivers keynotes and workshops on building healthy leadership teams, navigating difficult conversations, and creating cultures where leaders are supported through transitions. To discuss how Jonno might support your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

The Friendship Shift

The first and often most painful category of new leader identity grief is the way your relationships change. You may not lose friends in the dramatic sense, but the dynamic shifts in ways that feel like loss. Power changes what feels safe to say, and that changes everything about the connection you once had.

1. You Feel the Friendship Cooling with Former Peers

Research from Sias, Heath, Perry, Silva, and Fix found that promotion to a leadership role was one of the five primary causes of workplace friendship deterioration. This is not because you did something wrong. It is because power changes the social contract. Your former peers now filter what they share with you. The casual lunch invitations may slow down. The venting sessions that once bonded you will begin to feel off limits. Recognise this as a feature of the role, not a personal rejection. The sooner you name it, the sooner you can grieve it and stop trying to force the old dynamic back into place.

2. You Catch Yourself Overcompensating to Stay "Cool"

When the friendship shift begins, many new leaders instinctively try to prove they have not changed. They let performance standards slide for former peers. They share information they should not share. They avoid giving direct feedback because it feels like a betrayal of the old friendship. This is what Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, would identify as "ruinous empathy," the choice to be nice rather than clear, which ultimately harms the person and the team. Your job now is trust, fairness, and follow through. You can still be warm and human. But trading honesty for popularity is the fastest path to losing both.

3. You Grieve the Invite List

There is a specific moment that catches many new leaders off guard: realising you have been left off the casual Slack channel, the after-work drinks group, or the Friday lunch run. It stings. It is supposed to sting, because those connections mattered. Accept that this boundary is inherent to the role. You represent authority now, and your team needs space to process their own experiences without a power dynamic hovering over the conversation. The grief here is real, and it deserves to be named rather than suppressed.

For more on navigating these kinds of relational dynamics, check out my blog post '25 Crucial Tips for Handling Difficult Conversations' at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/25-crucial-tips-for-handling-difficult-conversations.

The Expert Identity Loss

Before your promotion, your identity was likely tied to what you could do. You were the person who always had the answer, who delivered the best work, who could solve the problem faster than anyone else. Leadership strips that identity away and replaces it with something less immediately rewarding. This is what Linda A. Hill, Harvard Business School professor and author of Becoming a Manager, describes as the fundamental shift from individual achievement to enabling others. It sounds inspiring on paper. In practice, it feels like losing yourself.

4. You Miss the Dopamine Hit of Doing the Work

Leadership replaces the quick win of solving problems with slower, less tangible wins like coaching, alignment, and compounding culture. If you were a teacher who became a head of department, you miss being in the classroom. If you were a developer who became a team lead, you miss writing code. If you were a salesperson who became a sales manager, you miss closing deals. The dopamine hit of crossing a technical task off your list is real, and its absence is a genuine loss. Learning to find satisfaction in the invisible work of aligning resources, clearing political red tape, and developing people is a skill that takes months to build.

5. You Keep Jumping In to Do the Work Yourself

This is one of the clearest signs that you have not yet transitioned your identity. If your calendar is still 80 percent execution and 20 percent people management, you are doing your old job with a new title. Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit, calls this the "advice monster," the compulsive urge to jump in and fix things rather than asking questions that help others grow. Every time you take the mouse and do it yourself, you accidentally train your team not to own the work. You also feed your old identity at the expense of building your new one.

6. You Struggle with Being Less Immediately Competent

You have moved from being an expert in your old job to being a beginner in your new one. This is what Marshall Goldsmith captured in the title of his bestselling book: What Got You Here Will Not Get You There. The technical skills, independence, and precision that earned you the promotion can become limitations if you do not realign them for a leadership context. Accept the dip in competence as evidence that you are genuinely in a new role, not evidence that you do not belong there. Separate competence from worth. You will be less skilled at the new role for a while, but you are not less valuable as a human.

Jonno White, trusted facilitator across Australia, UK, USA, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand, India, and Europe, runs Working Genius sessions that help teams understand how each person contributes at different stages of work. This clarity reduces the pressure on new leaders to do everything themselves. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to discuss your team.

The Imposter Crisis

Imposter syndrome is not unique to new leaders, but the transition into leadership is one of its most powerful triggers. The increased visibility, the scrutiny, the isolation from former peers, and the sudden expectation that you should have answers you do not yet have all combine to create a perfect storm of self doubt.

7. You Feel Like a Fraud in Leadership Meetings

A KPMG study found that 75 percent of female executives experience career related imposter syndrome, and broader research suggests 70 to 82 percent of leaders experience it at some point. When you walk into a leadership meeting and feel like everyone else belongs there except you, recognise this as one of the most common experiences in professional life, not evidence that HR made a mistake. The feeling of being unqualified is actually a sign of self awareness and respect for the weight of the role.

8. You Cannot Stop Trying to Prove You Deserved the Promotion

Over functioning is often grief in disguise. When you work 12 hour days, take on tasks that should be delegated, and say yes to everything, you are not demonstrating leadership. You are performing "confidence theatre" to soothe the fear that someone will discover you do not belong. Your team needs your judgment, your clarity, and your ability to make decisions. They do not need your heroics. Write yourself a "first 90 days permission slip": you are allowed to learn in public, be slower, and ask basic questions without it meaning you are a fraud.

9. You Feel Guilty About Being Promoted Over Others

Promotion guilt is a form of identity grief that rarely gets named. If you were promoted over a peer who also applied, or over someone with more experience, the guilt can be paralysing. Remind yourself that shrinking your own career progression does not actually serve theirs. Treat guilt as a signal that you care and that your relationships mattered, not as a verdict that the promotion was a betrayal. If the guilt persists, have a direct conversation with the person: "I know this changed things between us, and I want to navigate that honestly."

The Loneliness Nobody Warned You About

A survey from RHR International found that half of CEOs experience loneliness, with 61 percent believing it hinders their performance. But loneliness does not wait until you reach the C suite. It often begins the moment you accept your first leadership role, because the promotion simultaneously removes your peer group and hands you a set of confidential burdens you cannot share.

10. You Realise You Cannot Vent to Your Team Anymore

One of the most disorienting losses is the ability to process your frustrations with the people you spend the most time with. You now carry organisational secrets, impending decisions, and personnel knowledge that you cannot share. The casual "can you believe what management just did?" conversations that once bonded you to your colleagues are no longer available to you, because you are management now. This is not a personality flaw. It is the inherent burden of confidentiality that comes with the role.

11. You Feel "Between Groups" and Belonging to Neither

Herminia Ibarra, professor at London Business School and one of the foremost researchers on leadership identity, describes the transition into leadership as a period where you feel like you are not an individual contributor anymore, but not a real leader yet. She calls this the "neutral zone," borrowing from Bridges' Transition Model. You are too senior for your old peer group and too junior for the senior leadership circle. This "between groups" feeling is one of the most isolating experiences of new leadership, and it is completely normal. Belonging returns when you build new peer ties and develop identity clarity.

12. You Carry the Weight of Decisions Alone

Being a leader means making tough calls that affect other people's lives: performance conversations, resource allocation, hiring, letting someone go. These decisions often fall squarely on your shoulders, and the loneliness is amplified when you feel like you have no one to share that burden with. You might have advisors, but ultimately the decision is yours, and you are the one who has to live with the consequences. This is why building a horizontal network of peers at your level, whether inside or outside your organisation, is not a luxury. It is a survival strategy.

For more on leading through these challenges, check out my blog post '13 Warning Signs You Are Avoiding a Difficult Conversation' at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/signs-avoiding-difficult-conversation.

The Identity Vacuum

At the heart of new leader grief is a question that few people ask out loud: "Who am I now?" The identity you built over years of technical excellence, reliable performance, and peer belonging has been disrupted, and nothing has fully replaced it yet. This vacuum is where much of the anxiety, self doubt, and emotional exhaustion originates.

13. You Do Not Recognise Yourself in the Mirror

This is not a metaphor. Many new leaders report a genuine sense of disorientation where the person making decisions, running meetings, and setting expectations feels like a stranger wearing their clothes. Herminia Ibarra's research suggests that we do not change our identity by thinking about it; we change it by acting. She calls this "identity play," the process of trying on "possible selves" and experimenting with different leadership styles before you authenticate your own. The discomfort is not a sign of failure. It is the active process of identity construction.

14. You Keep Defining Yourself by Your Old Role

Pay attention to how you introduce yourself at networking events, conferences, or even to new team members. If you still lead with your technical expertise rather than your leadership role, your identity has not yet caught up with your title. Create a new identity statement. Instead of "I am the person who always knows the answer," try "I am the person who helps others do great work." This is not about abandoning your technical background. It is about integrating it into a broader leadership identity rather than clinging to it as the whole of who you are.

15. You Feel the "Uncanny Valley" of Leadership

There is a phase in every leadership transition that feels deeply strange. You are no longer an individual contributor, but you do not yet feel like a leader. You occupy an uncanny valley where nothing feels quite right. Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel described this in The Leadership Pipeline as a passage that requires not just new skills, but fundamentally different time application and values. It is not a skill gap. It is an identity gap. Expect this phase to last several months, and know that the discomfort is evidence that you are actually doing the hard work of transition.

Jonno White, host of The Leadership Conversations Podcast with 230 plus episodes reaching listeners in 150 plus countries, works with leaders navigating exactly these transitions. Book Jonno to facilitate a workshop or deliver a keynote for your leadership team at jonno@consultclarity.org.

The Emotional Tax

Leadership involves a form of emotional labour that nobody includes in the job description. You are now responsible for absorbing uncertainty, holding other people's anxieties, navigating conflict, and projecting steadiness even when you feel anything but steady. This emotional tax compounds over time if it is not actively managed.

16. You Are Emotionally Exhausted by the End of Every Day

The shift from managing tasks to managing people means you are now absorbing the anxieties, conflicts, career fears, and emotional needs of every person on your team. This is fundamentally different from the tiredness of a long day of productive individual work. Ronald Heifetz, who developed the concept of adaptive leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, distinguishes between technical problems and adaptive challenges. Technical problems have known solutions. Adaptive challenges require people to change their beliefs, habits, or priorities. Most of what you deal with as a new leader is adaptive, and adaptive work is emotionally draining by nature.

17. You Cannot Switch Off When You Get Home

When you were an individual contributor, leaving work at the office was easier because your problems had more defined edges. Leadership problems do not have clean edges. They are people problems, political problems, and ethical problems that follow you into the evenings and weekends. Create an "end of day" ritual to deliberately hang up your manager hat. This might be a physical cue like changing your clothes, a mental practice like writing a brief journal entry, or a rule like no work emails after a certain time. Without a deliberate boundary, the leadership identity will consume the rest of your identity.

18. You Start Showing Compassion Fatigue

Compassion fatigue is not just a risk for healthcare workers. It is a genuine hazard for any leader who holds space for other people's problems day after day. The signs include emotional numbness, irritability with people who ask for your help, cynicism about your team's problems, and a growing sense of disconnection. The emotional labour of leadership requires recovery just like physical labour does. Plan recovery time like you would plan meetings. Budget your emotional energy rather than spending it until it is gone.

Rebuilding Your Leadership Identity

The grief of becoming a leader is not a problem to be solved. It is a transition to be navigated. The good news is that it does end, not because the feelings disappear overnight, but because you gradually build a new identity that feels authentic and sustainable. Here are the signs that you are moving toward that new beginning, and the practices that accelerate the journey.

19. You Build a Peer Circle Outside Your Team

One of the single most important actions you can take as a new leader is to build relationships with other managers at your level. These people become your new peer group for support, reality checks, and honest conversation. They understand the specific pressures of leadership in a way that your team cannot and should not. Whether it is a formal peer advisory group, a leadership development program, or simply regular coffee with two or three other new managers, this horizontal network prevents the isolation that derails so many new leaders.

20. You Find One Trusted Confidant

Beyond a peer network, you need one person who serves as your anchor during the transition. This might be a coach, a mentor, a senior leader who has been where you are, or a trusted friend outside your organisation who has zero stake in your internal politics. This relationship normalises the experience, provides perspective, and prevents the shame spiral that comes from believing you are the only one struggling. If your organisation offers executive coaching, take it. If it does not, invest in it yourself. The return on that investment is measured in sanity, longevity, and effectiveness.

21. You Create a Personal Operating System

Identity stabilises through structure. When you define your one on one rhythm, your feedback cadence, your decision rules, and your communication norms, you stop improvising every day and start operating from a consistent foundation. This personal operating system does three things simultaneously: it reduces your cognitive load, it builds trust with your team through predictability, and it gives you evidence that you are actually doing the job. The Leadership Pipeline framework describes this as the shift in "time application," learning where to invest your hours so they match the demands of your new level.

22. You Learn to Measure Success Differently

The leadership scoreboard is fundamentally different from the individual contributor scoreboard. Your success is no longer measured by your personal output. It is measured by your team's capability, growth, and performance. Culture, clarity, retention, and team confidence are real outputs, even though they do not show up on a task list. Keep a "document of invisible wins" where you track the team problems you solved, the conflicts you navigated, the people you developed, and the clarity you created. Your brain needs evidence of progress to stabilise your new identity, and this practice provides that evidence.

23. You Accept That Both Things Can Be True

Perhaps the most important sign of progress in your leadership transition is the ability to hold two truths at once: you are deeply grateful for the opportunity, and you genuinely miss the comfort of your old role. Both can be true. The grief does not mean you made the wrong move. It means you valued what came before. Tessa Brock, leadership consultant, captures this perfectly: "You are not broken. You are becoming." When you can hold gratitude and grief in the same hand without needing to resolve the tension, you are no longer stuck in the identity vacuum. You are through the neutral zone and stepping into your new beginning.

Jonno White, founder of The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000 plus participating leaders and author of Step Up or Step Out with over 10,000 copies sold globally, works with leadership teams navigating transitions, team dynamics, and culture challenges. To bring Jonno in to facilitate a workshop, keynote, or executive team offsite for your organisation, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Whether virtual or face to face, international travel is often far more affordable than clients expect.

Notable Practitioners in Leadership Transitions

If this topic resonates with you, these practitioners are worth following. Each brings a distinct perspective on the identity challenges of leadership.

Herminia Ibarra is a professor at London Business School who specialises in leadership identity transitions and career change. Her research on "identity play" and "outsight" has shaped how organisations think about the internal journey of becoming a leader.

Liz Fosslien is the co-author of No Hard Feelings and Big Feelings. She is highly active on LinkedIn, posting shareable visual content about the emotional realities of work, leadership burnout, and imposter syndrome.

Julie Zhuo is the author of The Making of a Manager and a former VP of Product Design at Facebook. She frequently shares tactical, relatable advice on the psychological hurdles of new management on LinkedIn.

Rachel Pacheco is the author of Bringing Up the Boss and focuses on the practical and emotional realities of being a new manager in modern organisations.

Justin Bariso writes extensively about emotional intelligence and the human struggles of leadership. His LinkedIn content regularly addresses the gap between how leaders feel and how they are expected to perform.

Sara Canaday is a leadership development expert who regularly posts about the hidden traps of leadership transitions and the blind spots that derail new managers.

Tessa Brock is a leadership consultant based in Tucson, Arizona, who has written with unusual honesty about the grief of new leadership. Her blog post "Grief of a New Leader" is one of the few pieces on the internet that directly names this experience.

Glenn Birkelev has published thoughtful LinkedIn content about the leadership transition nobody warns you about, with a particular focus on the identity shift from expert to leader.

Common Mistakes New Leaders Make During the Identity Transition

The "Doer in Chief" trap is the most common mistake. Because you were the best at the job, you believe you should still do the job. This leads to micromanagement, bottlenecks, and a team that never develops its own capability. Your product is no longer the code, the copy, or the spreadsheet. Your product is the team's success and cohesion.

The "Cool Boss" illusion is the second trap. Desperately trying to maintain old peer dynamics by being overly lenient ultimately breeds team dysfunction and erodes the psychological safety that comes from clear expectations and consistent follow through.

The "Answers" fallacy is the belief that promotion means you must immediately have all the answers. Strong leaders create clarity and decision quality. They ask the questions that unblock thinking rather than providing the solutions that create dependence.

Misinterpreting the struggle is perhaps the most damaging mistake. When the transition feels painful and clunky, many new leaders conclude that they were not cut out for the role. The reality is that the struggle is the transition. If it were easy, it would not be a genuine identity shift. The discomfort is not a diagnosis. It is evidence that growth is happening.

Ignoring the grief entirely is the final and most insidious mistake. Attempting to force toxic positivity onto the promotion and refusing to acknowledge the very real loss of the old, comfortable work life only delays the transition and compounds the emotional toll.

For more on navigating these challenges, check out my blog post 'How To Have THAT Difficult Conversation With An Employee' at https://www.consultclarity.org/post/how-to-have-that-difficult-conversation-with-an-employee.

Taking Action: Your First 90 Days

If you are in the middle of this transition right now, here is a practical framework for your first 90 days.

In the first 30 days, focus on naming the grief. Write down what you are losing, what you miss, and what feels different. Run a "relationship reset" conversation with your former peers: "I value you, and I know this dynamic changed. I want to stay connected and be fair." Identify one trusted confidant outside your team. Audit your calendar to see how your time is actually being spent versus how it should be spent.

In days 30 to 60, focus on building structure. Create your personal operating system: your one on one rhythm, your feedback cadence, and your decision rules. Write a "no longer me" list of tasks you will stop doing even though you can do them well. Build your horizontal peer network by scheduling regular check ins with two or three other managers at your level. Start tracking invisible wins so your brain has evidence of progress.

In days 60 to 90, focus on stabilising your new identity. Choose one leadership skill to deliberately develop. Reframe conflict as leadership work rather than personal failure. Create an end of day ritual to separate your leadership identity from the rest of your life. Begin measuring your success by team capability rather than personal output. Expect the "valley of despair" around month three to six, when the initial excitement wears off and the heavy reality of the role sets in. This is normal. It does not mean you are failing.

Jonno White, who achieved a 93.75 percent satisfaction rating at the ASBA 2025 National Conference for his Working Genius masterclass, facilitates sessions specifically designed to help new and experienced leaders understand team dynamics, energy, and communication. Hire Jonno to run a session for your leadership team at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I feel sad after getting a promotion I wanted?

Because promotion involves genuine loss, not just gain. You are losing the comfort of your old role, the ease of your peer relationships, the confidence of technical mastery, and the clarity of knowing exactly what a successful day looks like. William Bridges' Transition Model explains that every new beginning requires an ending, and endings involve grief.

Is it normal to lose friends when you become the manager?

Yes. Research consistently shows that promotion is one of the primary causes of workplace friendship deterioration. This does not mean the friendships must end entirely, but the dynamic will shift because power changes what feels safe in the relationship. Name the shift openly and set new expectations rather than pretending nothing has changed.

How long does it take to feel like a real leader?

Organisational psychologists estimate 6 to 12 months for a full identity transition. This timeline varies depending on the support you receive, the complexity of your team, and whether you are leading former peers. The key is that identity stabilises through action and experience, not through waiting for a feeling of readiness.

How do I lead former peers without being awkward or authoritarian?

Have a direct conversation early: "I know this changed things between us. I want to be fair and clear, and I want to stay connected." Set expectations about what will change and what will not. Be consistent with standards across the entire team. The awkwardness fades when trust replaces uncertainty.

Can I hire someone to facilitate leadership team development?

Absolutely. An external facilitator brings objectivity, frameworks, and psychological safety that internal leaders often cannot provide during a transition. Jonno White facilitates Working Genius workshops, DISC sessions, and leadership team offsites designed to create clarity, alignment, and trust within teams. Email jonno@consultclarity.org to start a conversation.

What are the signs I am stuck in the transition and need help?

Persistent imposter feelings beyond the first six months, chronic exhaustion, withdrawal from relationships at work and home, inability to delegate, and a growing sense that you made the wrong career move are all signals that external support such as coaching, mentoring, or a structured leadership development program would be beneficial.

Who do I talk to when I cannot vent to my team?

Build three layers of support: a peer network of other managers at your level, one trusted confidant such as a coach or mentor, and a personal support system at home who understands the emotional weight of the transition. These three layers prevent the isolation that derails so many new leaders.

Final Thoughts

The grief nobody warns you about when you become a leader is not a sign that something went wrong. It is a sign that something important is changing. You are letting go of an identity that served you well, navigating a confusing middle ground where nothing feels quite right, and slowly building a new version of yourself that can hold the weight of leadership.

This is exactly what William Bridges described: the ending, the neutral zone, and the new beginning. Every leader who has ever been effective went through some version of this process. The ones who thrived were not the ones who avoided the grief. They were the ones who named it, navigated it, and allowed it to transform them.

You can be deeply grateful for the opportunity and still miss the comfort of the old role. Both truths can coexist. The grief does not mean you made the wrong move. It means you valued what came before. And it means you are on your way to something new.

If navigating difficult conversations with your team is part of the challenge, Jonno White's book Step Up or Step Out provides a complete framework. Grab your copy at Amazon.

To book Jonno White for your next keynote, workshop, executive team offsite, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org. Whether virtual or face to face, many organisations find that flying Jonno in costs less than engaging high profile local providers.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, bestselling author, and leadership consultant who has worked with schools, corporates, and nonprofits across the UK, India, Australia, Canada, Mongolia, New Zealand, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, USA, Finland, Namibia, and more. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold over 10,000 copies globally, and his podcast The Leadership Conversations has featured 230 plus episodes reaching listeners in 150 plus countries. Jonno founded The 7 Questions Movement with 6,000 plus participating leaders and achieved a 93.75 percent satisfaction rating for his Working Genius masterclass at the ASBA 2025 National Conference. Based in Brisbane, Australia, Jonno works globally and regularly travels for speaking and facilitation engagements. Organisations consistently find that international travel is far more affordable than expected.

To book Jonno for your next keynote, workshop, or facilitation session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

Next Read: 13 Warning Signs You Are Avoiding a Difficult Conversation

You are not alone. Research from the Chartered Management Institute found that 57 percent of people would do almost anything to avoid a difficult conversation. A separate study from the University of Notre Dame's Deaconess Leadership Centre found that more than 80 percent of workers are holding back from at least one challenging conversation at work. And when Brene Brown's team surveyed leaders about the biggest barriers to courage in their organisations, one issue was ranked as the greatest concern above all others: avoiding tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback.

The cost of avoidance is not neutral. It is compounding. Every conversation you postpone becomes harder to have. The behaviour you tolerate becomes normalised. The team around you watches and draws conclusions about what is acceptable.

Keep reading: 13 Warning Signs You Are Avoiding a Difficult Conversation