The Unintentional Path to Intentional Faux Leadership™

Leadership often begins with good intentions. People step into leadership roles hoping to inspire, guide, and support their teams. Yet sometimes leadership takes a wrong turn, evolving into something less genuine and more performative. Faux leadership rarely starts maliciously. Instead, it may start as a survival strategy to fill gaps in competence, connection, or commitment or respond to an environment. Unfortunately, what may have started as a coping mechanism eventually becomes a choice -- and it's in this choice that the danger lies.

This shift from accidental faux leadership to intentional behavior can undermine trust, damage morale, and stall progress. Understanding how this happens is essential for anyone who wants to lead with authenticity and purpose.

Faux leadership begins where learning ends.

How Faux Leadership Starts Accidentally

Many leaders do not set out to be insincere or ineffective. Faux leadership often begins with small, seemingly harmless choices that accumulate over time. Four key behaviors can start a leader down this path:

(1) Overconfidence without experience

(2) Avoiding difficult conversations and challenging tasks

(3) Mimicking leadership behaviors

(4) Prioritizing image over impact

Overconfidence Without Experience

New leaders sometimes overestimate their abilities. They may rely on authority rather than collaboration, believing that their position alone commands respect. These choices can lead to decisions made without input from others, creating a disconnect between the leader and the team and building leader habits that make it feel easier to pretend to lead than to actually lead.

Reflection question: What behaviors do I utilize when I need to accomplish a task or project with people?

Avoiding Difficult Conversations & Challenging Tasks

When a leader avoids challenges, they are on a path to faux leadership. First, I want to acknowledge that facing conflict or delivering critical feedback is uncomfortable. Some leaders avoid these moments, hoping problems will resolve themselves. This avoidance can be mistaken for weakness or indifference, causing frustration among team members. A similar result can occur when leaders avoid challenging tasks, either by outsourcing them to address the competence gap or by delegating them. Both options give leaders someone else to blame, instead of owning their competence or

Reflection question: When I encounter someone I have not done or am uncomfortable with, how do I approach the situation? Avoidance? Delegation? or Learning?

Mimicking Leadership Styles

Inexperienced leaders might imitate styles they have seen in others without understanding the underlying values. For example, adopting a commanding tone or focusing on appearances rather than substance can create a facade of leadership that lacks depth. In coaching conversations or leadership development programs, I often suggest that people "try on" new leadership behaviors, but faux leaders don't take the mimicking to the next level of embracing or even developing their leadership identity.

This behavior is especially dangerous on the path to faux leadership because it is where individuals can learn to use jargon instead of developing competence or learn to pretend to build a connection rather than develop emotional intelligence.

Reflection question: When I am in a leadership situation, am I acting or am I genuinely leading?

Prioritizing Image Over Impact

The fourth behavior is often driven by the environment and by leaders' coaching. If the environment rewards leaders for looking busy, making grand statements, or attending meetings without driving real progress, then they are less likely to commit to the work of leadership. These behaviors can start as a way to manage perceptions, but gradually become a habit that distances leaders from their teams and focuses on shallow leadership.

Reflection question: Are my actions focused on looking like leadership or doing the work of leadership, which is more often not on display for others?

The Shift Toward Intentional Faux Leadership™

When these accidental behaviors go unchecked, they can become intentional. It is when a potential coping mechanism becomes a choice that the transition happens. Leaders may realize that projecting authority or avoiding vulnerability protects their status or reduces discomfort.

This shift often happens for several reasons:

(1) Fear of losing control or power

(2) Desire for approval

(3) Habitual avoidance of accountability

(4) Failure to embrace leadership purpose

Fear of Losing Control or Power

Leaders who fear losing control and power may double down on superficial displays of power. They might micromanage or insist on decisions without input to maintain their position, even if it harms team dynamics. These leaders may grandstand or berate others to appear as leaders, instead of doing the work of leadership that requires curiosity, learning, and connection.

Desire for Approval

As humans, we want to be approved and liked by others. This need does not change when we become leaders. So, some leaders seek approval from higher-ups or peers by appearing confident and decisive, even when unsure. This desire for approval can lead to overpromising, exaggerating achievements, or ignoring feedback that challenges their image. The key that moves these behaviors into faux leadership is when the leader has a plan that includes a scapegoat or blame; it is the lack of accountability or continued shift of focus or blame that moves this from a normal human behavior to the third behavior that indicates faux leadership is becoming a choice.

Habitual Avoidance of Accountability

When leaders start down the path of lack of accountability, in both competence and connection, it can become a leader habit that they embrace. Once leaders get used to avoiding difficult conversations or shirking responsibility, it becomes easier to keep doing so. This pattern can create a culture where accountability is weak, and problems persist.

Failure to Embrace Leadership Purpose

The final, and often most foundational, needs of leaders to avoid faux leadership is to embrace their leadership purpose. Leaders who view their role as managing tasks rather than supporting people may focus on control and appearance. This misunderstanding can turn leadership into a performance rather than a service. Leaders may also be on a pursuit of self-interest: power, promotion, prestige, and money can all fit within this bucket.

An empty chair in a dim room representing isolation in leadership

Signs That Faux Leadership Has Become Intentional

Recognizing when leadership has shifted from accidental to intentional is crucial.

Here are some signs to watch for:

• Jargon over content: Leaders avoid in-depth problem-solving by using jargon because they do not have the expertise to address the problem.

  
  

• Consistent avoidance of feedback: Leaders dismiss or ignore input from others. These leaders will not solicit feedback from any area that will not reinforce their own view of their leadership.

  
  

• Focus on self-promotion: More energy goes into personal image than team success. Most of leadership happens in everyday actions; faux leaders most often don't lead when people aren't watching.

  
  

• Lack of transparency: Information is withheld to protect the leader’s position. When a leader is protecting information, data, processes, etc., they are often hiding something, which is how faux leaders behave. If they can't hide behind jargon, they put up walls to prevent others from interrogating their leadership or teams, because it would expose a competence and/or connection gap.

  
  

• Minimal engagement with team concerns: Leaders show little interest in employee well-being or ideas. These leaders will grandstand for or about their team, but they will not do the emotionally intensive work of addressing concerns. These leaders (if they have the power) will often use promotions and compensation as temporary fills to a gap in their leadership.

  
  

Reminder of the Impacts of Intentional Faux Leadership™

Intentional faux leadership harms organizations in several ways that are often grounded in either a competence gap or a connection gap.

• Eroded trust: Teams lose faith in leaders who seem insincere or self-serving. (Connection gap)

  
  

• Lower morale: Employees feel undervalued and disengaged. (Connection gap)

  
  

• Reduced productivity: Lack of clear direction and support stalls progress. (Competence gap)

  
  

• High turnover: Talented individuals leave for environments with genuine leadership. (Connection gap)

  
  

• Stifled innovation: Fear of speaking up limits creativity and problem-solving. (Competence gap)

  
  

How to Avoid Falling into Faux Leadership™

Preventing faux leadership requires self-awareness and a commitment to growth. Here are practical steps leaders can choose to take:

Focus on Learning

Faux leadership™ stems from two key gaps that create shallow leadership: the competence gap and the connection gap. By maintaining a focus on learning and embracing a growth mindset (thank you, Dr. Carol Dweck), leaders continue to address their gaps.

Embrace Humility & Vulnerability

Learning leaders can fall into the trap of believing they need to have all the answers, but the truth is that admitting mistakes and uncertainties builds trust. Leaders who show vulnerability encourage openness and collaboration. Humility connects to maintaining a learning mindset, minimizing blind spots, and relying on mimicking leadership rather than actually leading.

Seek Honest Feedback

The choice of faux leadership™ begins when a leader does not want to face their competence and connection gaps. By building the habit of regularly asking peers and team members for input, leaders actively identify andwork to reduce these gaps. To do this, leaders need to embrace using feedback to improve rather than defend.

Develop Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be developed and has been referred to as the leadership meta skill because understanding and managing emotions helps leaders connect with their teams and handle challenges effectively. Continually developing self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social management will make leaders more effective in their roles. (And each of these elements of emotional intelligence changes as roles and levels within an organization change.)

Prioritize Accountability

To avoid slipping into faux leadership, individuals must practice accountability by consistently owning both their decisions and their impact. Practicing accountability means setting clear commitments, inviting feedback even when it is uncomfortable, and following through with transparency when outcomes fall short.

True accountability is not about perfection but about integrity. It means acknowledging mistakes, course correcting, and modeling responsibility, so that trust is strengthened rather than eroded.

By holding themselves answerable to shared values and measurable results, leaders demonstrate authenticity and prevent the hollow posturing that defines faux leadership

Final Thoughts

Faux leadership often starts without intention but can become a deliberate pattern that harms teams and organizations. Recognizing the early signs and committing to genuine leadership practices can reverse this trend. Learning leaders become faux leaders not by accident but by choice when they abandon curiosity for convenience. Instead of modeling growth, they cling to certainty, preferring the illusion of expertise over the vulnerability of continued learning. This deliberate posture turns development into performance, checking boxes, quoting frameworks, and projecting authority, while quietly resisting the discomfort of change. By choosing image over inquiry, faux leaders betray the very essence of leadership learning, revealing that faux leadership is not just a failure of skill but a conscious refusal to practice accountability and growth

The next discussion will be how environments can create this transition from learning leader to intentional faux leader and how to avoid it.

© 2025 Dr. Sara Reed. All rights reserved.