“I Feel Like I’m Sucking as a Leader”
Several high-performing leaders have said those exact words to me in coaching sessions this year. In retrospect, I recall saying the exact same words in my leadership roles!
Sales are up. Teams are hitting targets. Peers are asking for their input. From the outside, these leaders look like they’re crushing it.
But inside? They feel like they’re barely keeping it together.
What they struggle to accept is that they’re not failing. Instead, they’re frustrated because they know what great looks like.
And that’s a completely different problem.
The Wiring That Drives Excellence (and Exhaustion)
High achievers aren’t motivated by praise. They’re motivated by standards, internal ones that never fully turn off, even when external results say they’re winning.
Most people are motivated by being told they can do something. High achievers are wired the opposite way.
Tell us we can’t do something, and the switch flips. Now we’re interested. Now we’re focused. Now we’re awake.
That wiring isn’t accidental. It’s often built through early achievement, competition, athletics, military service, family expectations, or environments where excellence wasn’t celebrated – it was expected. Over time, the brain learns something critical: Average is unsafe. Above average is survival.
Being above average isn’t about ego. It’s about identity.
High achievers don’t chase success to prove they’re good enough. They chase it because standing still feels like regression. Comfort feels suspicious. Ease feels like complacency. When things are going well, the mind immediately scans for what’s missing:
- What could be better
- What’s slipping
- What standard isn’t being met yet
That mindset builds incredible leaders. It also quietly exhausts them.
The Research Backs This Up
Across 43 studies, perfectionism consistently predicted higher burnout, depression, and anxiety, even when performance on the outside looked strong (Limburg et al., 2021). Research with high-ability students shows that even so-called “adaptive” perfectionists report significantly more academic burnout than their non-perfectionist peers (Smith, 2025).
The drive that creates excellence can also create exhaustion.
The Disconnect No One Talks About
I see this pattern constantly. Strong leaders tell me, “I feel like I’m sucking at this,” while their teams are producing, their peers respect them, and their organizations rely on them.
That disconnect isn’t delusion. It’s distortion.
High achievers judge themselves by internal expectations, not external outcomes. The problem is that those expectations are usually invisible to everyone else, including their teams, their bosses, and even themselves.
Reviews of more than 14,000 participants suggest that up to 80% of high performers experience impostor-type feelings at some point in their careers (Toastmasters, 2025). In some medical training programs, roughly six in ten students report impostor syndrome, and those feelings are closely tied to later burnout and emotional exhaustion (UCLA Health, 2025).
Reality Check: You’re not failing. You’re frustrated because you know what great looks like. That’s an important distinction.
When Standards Outpace Systems
High achievers struggle most when systems lag behind standards, when execution doesn’t match intention, and when discipline erodes because complexity increases. That gap creates mental noise.
Noise sounds like self-criticism. Noise sounds like urgency without clarity. Noise sounds like constantly scanning for problems instead of recognizing progress.
Leadership research shows that many high performers respond to pressure with relentless self-criticism, which erodes confidence and increases the risk of burnout, rather than improving results (Floren, 2023). In one workplace survey, 68% of employees said perfectionism was a direct path to burnout, and two-thirds linked it to fear of failure and conflict avoidance (Bhatia, 2025).
More pressure doesn’t equal more progress.
Three Strategies to Lead Without the Exhaustion
Strategy 1: Separate Identity from Execution
The best leaders I work with aren’t the ones grinding themselves into the ground. They’re the ones who learn to separate identity from execution.
Scholars of performance-based leadership argue that when identity fuses with results, leaders stop seeing themselves as people in a role and start seeing themselves as the role itself, making every setback feel existential. This fusion of self-worth and performance is closely linked to workaholism, perfectionism, and chronic self-judgment, all known risk factors for anxiety, depression, and burnout (Influence Journal for Leaders, 2025).
The shift sounds like this:
Instead of: “I’m bad at this.”
Say: “There are a few systems I want to strengthen.”
Instead of: “I should be doing more.”
Say: “This process needs clarity.”
That reframe matters because it moves the problem from your worth to your workflow. Excellence doesn’t require suffering. High standards don’t require self-attack. Leadership doesn’t require constant internal tension to be effective.
Strategy 2: Choose Your Battles Strategically
High achievers are often motivated by resistance. When someone says, “That will never work,” or “That’s not possible,” or “That’s not how we do things,” it lights a fire.
That energy can be powerful. It can also trap leaders in constant fight mode.
Not every challenge needs to be conquered. Not every obstacle needs to be proof. Not every limitation needs to become a personal mission.
Sometimes leadership isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about designing better systems so that effort goes further.
Ask yourself:
- Is this resistance worth engaging, or am I just proving a point?
- Will winning this battle move my team forward, or just feed my drive?
- What would happen if I let this one go?
High achievers don’t need more motivation. They need fewer friction points. They need predictability instead of pressure. They need structure instead of self-judgment. They need clarity instead of constant internal recalibration.
Strategy 3: Build Systems That Protect Standards
Here’s where many high achievers get stuck. Systems feel slow. Process feels constraining. Discipline feels boring.
Yet systems protect standards. They reduce cognitive load, and they prevent leaders from carrying everything in their heads.
The leaders who sustain excellence without burning out do three things:
They document decisions. When a standard gets clarified, they capture it. No more re-deciding the same thing every quarter.
They create repeatable processes. For recurring challenges, they build templates, frameworks, and checklists that free up mental energy for strategic thinking.
They let the system carry the load. Instead of being the person who remembers everything, they become the person who builds infrastructure that remembers for them.
This raises the bar so your team can consistently reach it without you holding it up every time.
The Truth About Growth
The most important truth I share with leaders who feel like they’re failing is this:
Feeling dissatisfied doesn’t mean something is wrong. It often means you’re growing into a new version of leadership. One that values sustainability, one that values depth over constant movement, and one that understands excellence isn’t a sprint fueled by adrenaline, but a system fueled by clarity.
Above average leadership isn’t about always doing more. It’s about knowing where to focus, when to push, and when to let systems carry the load.
Permission to Lead Differently
High achievers don’t need permission to care. They already care deeply.
Sometimes they need permission to breathe. Sometimes they need permission to recognize progress. Sometimes they need permission to redefine success without lowering the bar.
That’s not settling. That’s maturity.
And that’s what separates good leaders from great ones.
Want more clarity and less self-pressure? Explore my new book, The New Choice Effect. It’s perfect for leaders, executives, and high achievers.
References:
Bhatia, A. (2025). The burnout paradox: Why high achievers crash harder (and how to prevent it). LinkedIn.
Floren, P. (2023). The burden of expectations: Leaders and the unkindness to themselves. LinkedIn.
Influence Journal for Leaders. (2025). Performance-based leadership is a mental health crisis.
Limburg, K., et al. (2021). Are perfectionistic standards associated with burnout? A meta-analysis. PubMed Central.
Smith, M. (2025). Perfectionism and academic burnout in honors, high-ability college students. University of South Dakota.
Toastmasters. (2025). A surprising truth behind high achievers.
UCLA Health. (2025). Overview of impostor syndrome among high achievers and medical trainees.
