When the Show Ends, So Does the Strain: Saying No to Performative Leadership

Let me be real with you.

I'm no longer interested in performing leadership. I’m not here to win anyone over with curated language, polished optics, or fake energy. That version of me is gone. She worked hard to be seen, stayed late to be valued, and put on a smile while quietly unraveling. She meant well. She just didn’t know the cost.

Leadership is not a performance. It’s not about being on. It’s not about who claps. And it sure as hell isn’t about sacrificing your sanity just to look like you have it all together.

For years, I bought into the idea that good leaders showed up strong no matter what. That being exhausted was just part of it. That the more you carried, the more credible you were.

I didn’t know I was building my own cage.

Then my body forced me to stop pretending. Three strokes. Frequent panic attacks. A cracked-open reality. Loss after loss. Health scares I never saw coming. Disinterest in things I once enjoyed. That season stripped away the performance. What was left was the truth, and the truth was more than enough.

Since then, I’ve had to relearn what leadership actually looks like for ME.

It looks like presence.

It looks like discernment.

It looks like telling the truth, even when it costs you the room.

It looks like turning down the volume on approval and turning up the volume on alignment.

Here’s what I know now: If you have to perform to be accepted, that’s not leadership. That’s survival.

And I’m done surviving in rooms I was born to change.

Performative leadership is heavy. It leaves no room for humanity. It rewards optics over impact. It claps for burnout. It demands your silence in exchange for safety. And it will eat you alive if you let it.

You don’t owe anybody a version of you that’s killing you.

You don’t need to dress up your exhaustion to prove you’re committed.

You don’t need to bleed out just to be called a leader.

You get to lead differently. On your terms. From a place of lived experience, not false perfection. From conviction, not choreography.

This week’s reflection:

• Where are you still performing leadership to survive the space?

• What would change if you led from presence instead of performance?

• What truth have you been silencing for the sake of being palatable?

If you’re ready to stop performing and start leading with presence, reach out.

I help leaders unlearn what no longer serves them and rebuild from a place of clarity and conviction.

📩 Email me directly at nichole@dnicholedavis.com

Coming next: August Week 1 – “The Myth of Balance and the Truth About Recalibration.”