496: The Four Leadership Masks

Hey Bob here and welcome to the Your Virtual Upline Podcast. But the teacher mask feels like love. It feels generous, it feels respectful, it feels like you're empowering people to make their own decision. And that's why it's so hard to see. How can something that feels so good be a mask? So last episode you met Missy. I shared her story of how she lived through something that she now calls her fishes and loaves season, where she experienced three months of effortless growth. Leaders promoting a team that moved on its own without having to be pushed. And then I shared what happened to her when she got promoted. Fear took over the source position. Her calling got hijacked. Her belief got tied to keeping the rank that she just earned and the growth collapsed. So I named all that as the fear led order. Her in the source position of the leader results replace calling as the direction of the business. Identity tied to the rank that's who you are now. And belief becoming borrowed rented from the results every day. And growth fear led growth that always takes more than it gives. So that's the system underneath. That's what's actually been running all of you. And it's why the business has felt the way that it has. And so if you missed the last episode, I'll link it in the show notes. But it was the first of a four part special mini series that I'm doing here on the show. Choosing all of you for the first time really to the concepts that make up the new work as I call it that I've been doing with leaders behind the scenes mostly since January. So today we're going to look at something different. So when fear takes over, your source position as a leader. And when the order gets reversed, it doesn't stay invisible. It actually does show up. It shapes how you lead every single day. It changes the way you post, the way you talk to your team, the way you start conversations, the way you respond to a slow month, and the way you treat people who don't perform. It shows up as a mask. Now before I go any further, I want to name something carefully. The masks that I'm going to describe to you in this episode, they're not personality types. You're not wearing one of them in the way that you might be introverted or extroverted. The leadership masks are protective postures that fear creates when it takes the source position. Think of the mask as the suit of armor for a love-led person that needs to protect themselves in a system that's based on fear. They're responses. They're not who you are. They're not you trying to be fake, but they will feel like who you are. That's the power of them. See because most of you, you've been wearing one of these masks so long. You don't even see it as a mask. You've never seen it. It just feels like who you are. It feels like leadership. So today I'm going to walk through four of them. And I promise you you're going to recognize yourself in at least one. Maybe you've heard me talk about the masks before. I can tell you as a concept, they have generally stayed the same on the surface level, but my understanding of them has changed dramatically now that I've actually been teaching them and really seeing the way they show up in the leaders that I work with. And so if you're hearing this for the first time, you'll immediately recognize yourself in one, maybe more than one. And here's what I've found that most leaders actually wear different masks at different stages of their business. But there's always one that is kind of the primary mask and that's the one that you fall back into when the pressure arises. Here's what I want us to hold together as we walk through this. The understanding that the masks are actually not the problem. The mask is not the enemy. Remember the mask is your protector. The masks are downstream of the actual problem, which is fear. See when fear becomes the source of your leadership and results replace calling as the direction. That's when the mask shows up because it feels unsafe for you to take an action and truly sharing your authentic self, saying the things that you actually want to say or doing the things that you want to do. And so the question becomes, once we see the mask, how do we take it off? You don't take it off. The mask comes off when you restore what is supposed to be in the source position of your leadership, which is love. And so we'll unpack that today. So I want to start off with the first leadership mask, which is the performer. So I want to share a story of a leader that I'm working with now. Her name is Susan. So she recently fell out of qualification for a top rank that she holds in her company, right? A real thing, a hard thing. This has happened to probably many of you. If it has, you understand how painful that can be. And so one of the things that we kind of helped her figure out in the work that we were doing together is that she was feeling called to share this with the people that were around her. And it felt very scary. And so we sat down to help her write a post where she would share her truth in this area. Here's what happened. The second she went to write the post, fear and the mask showed up. She thought, I can't just share that, right? Because like sharing that you lost a rank, I mean, that feels exposing. That's vulnerable. That's too uncontrolled. The thought then becomes, well, what's my team going to think if I've lost my rank, that's going to hurt their belief, right? Of course. And so this is what happened. She started looking for a way where she could share it because that was the assignment. But let's just make it a little easier. Let's make it feel safer. Let's find a way to share it that doesn't make us feel so naked. And so here's what she did. She took the truth about losing a rank and she buried it inside a longer post, which was really just a broader story and a lesson about all of the challenges that she's faced and overcome in her career. Losing a job, transitioning career, these difficult moments in her life. We've all seen those types of posts before. And then somewhere right towards the end, she kind of stuffed in the mention about rank class, a few sentences, certainly not the headline or the lead. But this is what the performer mass does. It doesn't completely avoid vulnerability. It curates it. It wraps the dangerous, true, honest thing inside a safer thing so the vulnerability lands, but it doesn't feel like it exposes you. She still gets credit for being open technically. She did the assignment, but she still was controlling what other people could see. And so I was on a coaching call with an, and I asked her, I said, well, what if you share just that? Like what if the entire post, what if it wasn't a lesson? What if it wasn't like a well written thing? What if it was just your truth, raw out there in the open for the benefit of other people to see that might be struggling with something similar? I said, could you do that? She said, no, too scary. And then I asked her, well, why did you put it in the middle of all the other stuff? Turn it into a message or a lesson. You know, I asked her, I said, is that your calling or is that the mask secretly adapting? And she knew immediately. It was the mask. But look, this isn't just Susan. Every performer mass leader does some version of this. If you're a performer, you're already shaking your head, right? That honest post that has to be curated before it goes up, that hard moment that you've got to figure out a way to polish it up a little bit before you share it. That truth that gets stuck inside of something that feels a little safer. It's controlling the vulnerability. It's performed authenticity. And so if that's ever happened to you, if you've ever sat down thinking, ooh, I should share this. You'll call to share it, but then immediately the mask comes on and you start rewriting it and turning it into something that lands. a little safer, that is the performer mask. And so the mask isn't trying to keep you from being vulnerable, it's trying to control how the vulnerability lands. That's the result that you're focused on. And so what is the performer mask actually protecting? The fear of being seen for who you actually are when you're not winning. Think of what we're taught. You always have to look strong, you always have to be positive, you always have to show success. Everything we've been taught about content in this profession is a performance. And so sharing something hard feels scary because it damages the image. The fear is that if people actually see the truth that they won't stay. And so the performer manages the truth. It's always edited, it's always curated. Now if you're listening to this right now and you see yourself inside a Susan and you recognize that this is something you do, that's the performer. And let's be honest, it's exhausting, isn't it? Like if every post and every conversation and every team call, if it becomes a performance that you have to manage, that wears on you over time. See, that's the thing that burns people out, not working hard, feeling like they have to perform a version of themselves every time they do something. It's also something that lacks integrity. If all we do is share the success, we're not being honest and real about the actual journey. That's the first mask. The second mask is the pusher. So I'll share a story of Jesse. Jesse is a leader that I've actually been working with since January. I've interviewed her on the podcast. She was our very first behind the rank episode, I believe. She's spent a decade as a top leader in her company, million dollar producer. She's built a real organization by every metric that the industry uses. She's been successful. Team is grown, she's earned the car, she's hit the rank, she's been on the trips. From the outside, you'd look at her business and say, "That's what I want." But let's talk about what was underneath. See what you wouldn't see from the outside is what all of this was doing to her every single month. Pushing herself constantly, driving the team, never letting up for a second. Always reminding the team about the next promotion, coaching, motivating and encouraging, pushing. Because if they didn't perform, if they didn't produce, if she didn't hit the numbers, she didn't feel okay. See here's what most people miss about the pusher. The pusher isn't pushing because they're driven. They're pushing because their self-worth depends on the result of the push. See when your team performs, you feel worthy. But when they don't perform, you feel worthless. And pushing becomes how you manage your own identity. See, that's the one thing you know you always can do, which is push. And what winds up happening is your team's effort and your team's results. They become the supply line for your own sense of self. Your self-worth is attached to what they do or don't do every day. And here's what it costs her behind the scenes, what nobody saw. The years of carrying her team's belief, the recovery cycles after every push. There's a big push. And then there's a drawback where people can't even show up anymore. June is the end of year in her company. Every single June, huge push and then everybody disappears in July. You didn't see the relationships that were strained by the pressure that she didn't even fully see herself. She felt it, but she couldn't see it. She was always able to push and hit her goal. And all you saw was the number. What you didn't see was what it was costing her, her people. They were burning out and quietly disconnecting. And when you looked at the push, here's the thing. It worked a little less every year when it came and it burned out the entire team a little bit more. But the cost wasn't just her team. The cost was also in her because the same thing was happening to her. And then she started to see it. Eventually, all push her masks do. She started to get some new language, understand fear and love and source and order. She started to notice she would catch herself when she was getting ready to write a breakup text that she would call it to someone that didn't show for a meeting or a message to someone on her team trying to push them to a goal at the end of the month. She would pause. She would start to notice that anxious feeling that would set in when a prospect didn't respond right away to a message. And here's what she did with the recognition. She started to pull back. She stopped pushing because once the push stops working and we start to actually see the damage it's doing in other people, we immediately pull back. You don't want to be that kind of a leader, but here's the problem is the push never stops. It can't stop. Because there's still a rank to keep, there's numbers to hit, there's people to replace, the ones that left, you just change the target and you push yourself. And that's the thing that every pusher mask leader will recognize is the push can never stop. It's who you are. Who are you if you're not pushing? Success and pushing and grind, it's become synonymous for you. It's all you know, it's your experience of growth. And I think it's important to see this understanding where all that comes from. It comes from fear. Fear that you're not enough if you don't produce. Fear that if you let up for one second, the whole thing stops. Pushing is how you keep the fear quiet. So the push your mask doesn't push because they're driven, they push because their identity is tied to the numbers and what happens after the push. And so if you saw yourself in Jesse, if this feels familiar to you, if yourself worth rises and falls with your team's performance, if you've caught yourself pushing and didn't understand why that's the mask. The third mask is the teacher. So let me tell you about another leader that I work with Emily, who wears a teacher mask. That's also my primary mask as well. So she shared an experience with me recently on a coaching call about a sponsoring conversation she had. The person that she was talking with, she knew exactly what she wanted. She told her clearly inside of the conversation, Emily did a great job. She asked the right question. She made it about them, right? All the things that we've learned were supposed to do. And she found out that this particular woman, that she wanted to be able to replace the income of her husband's pastor job so they could do missionary work full time, right? Something really meaningful, like that's direction, that's the goal. And Emily had it. She was clear. She got that. And she got all the way to the part where you've got to make the offer and you present the thing, right? And she presented two options to them. You know, do you want to go faster? Do you want to go slow? I used to teach before I understood this. And then she stepped back. I said, where'd you leave it? She goes, well, I presented the options. I'm waiting for them to decide. And I asked her on this coaching call, I said, why do you like to give people options? And here's what she said. She goes, why don't you want them to feel pressured? And I said, well, that's the teacher mask. So because here's the thing, what you get out of it is you don't have to be the one leading them towards the decision. It feels safer. The teacher loves to serve and support and give. And then we get all the way to the moment of truth and we educate and we pull back. We don't want to be that person. What's actually happening is it feels safer because if yourself worth is tied to their decision and you pull back and create space will now feels a little bit less painful if they say no. But here's what Emily said and this is important. She goes, but giving them options feels loving. And my response was that's why the teacher mask is one of the hardest masks to see. See most masks feel uncomfortable when you recognize them. The pusher knows they're pushing even if they don't know why. The performer immediately knows that they're curating everything. It feels generous. It feels respectful. It feels like you're empowering people to make their own decision. And that's why it's so hard to see because how can something that feels so good be a mask? But here's what it's actually protecting. The fear of being wrong. Here's a question for all the teacher mask people who might now be thinking this is you. How often does your team see you? trouble, probably not too often. But what do you think the cost is to them? Here's what else it's protecting, the fear of being responsible for the outcome attached to it. So the teacher hides behind information. Behind value, it presents options, it teaches frameworks, it empowers other people to decide, and that all sounds great and it sounds noble, but all of it is fear. Because it never has to actually lead. See leading means that you are a part of the most important moment which is helping people decide. That's when they need leadership. They don't need options. They need you to lead them down the path that will serve them the best based off of the goal they gave you, but teaching options that stepping back into safety. And so listen, every teacher mask leader will recognize this, right? That conversation where you presented information instead of making a recommendation. The team member who said, "What should I do?" and you happily taught and trained and fixed their stuff and told them what to do. The moment when someone genuinely needed your leadership and you gave them education instead. Look, if people aren't moving, it's never because they don't know what to do. See the teacher mask uses information as a hiding place. And it does deliver real value, but it never crosses the line into being seen, taking a position. I'll share another quick story of a teacher mask leader that I work with. This particular leader said to me once we were working on a process of, we call it a transfer conversation. It's just a structured kind of framework we use to be able to transfer source and belief into someone that you're leading. And this leader said, "Well, I haven't done it yet because I don't think my team is ready yet." And I said, "Well, how do you benefit from saying they're not ready?" She was like, "I don't know. I go, "Well, you don't, but your mask does." Because then you don't have to do something that might not work. Something that you might not look good at or like an expert doing. Having pattern, the teacher delays action by saying that other people need more understanding. And here's the other thing, the teacher mask never wants to do something where people might see them struggle. And so it looks generous on the outside, but it's protective. The information in the teaching there are the wall. So if you saw yourself in Emily, if you recognize yourself in that story, that's the teacher. See the people that came to you for direction and help, they did not need information, they needed belief. The reason why they're struggling, the reason why they're not moving is because fear has become their source. What you didn't realize is you came from a good place with a good heart, but you haven't recognized that you've been transferring fear to them. The fourth and the final mask is the disconnect. So there's another kind of leader that you don't hear much about in this industry. They used to be active, they used to post, they used to leave from the front. Their heart used to be in their business. They were passionate. They were on fire. And then somewhere they stopped. Not all at once in pieces, a little bit less posting, fewer conversations, smaller presence. They're still visible. They're still there, but they're not really there anymore. They've emotionally disconnected from their business. They've pulled back. Now, most people would look at them and say they've lost their drive. They've burned out. They're not as committed as they used to be. But that's not what's happening. The disconnected leader hasn't lost anything. They're protecting themselves. They're protecting themselves from the pain that they've gone through, the loss that they've experienced, loss of company, loss of rank, loss of people. I'll share another story of a leader that I work with named Angela. Here's how disconnections showed up on her. She went four years as a successful leader, okay, in her company, where she barely posted on social media, Facebook in particular, a handful of posts in four years. She essentially completely abandoned the platform. She wasn't there. Two weeks into working with her, she posted. She shared a truth, one honest, raw, vulnerable truth to a platform that she hadn't used in years where nobody expected to see her. Now, let me name why this is significant. We don't pull back from all parts of our business all the time. If you can identify the places that you've pulled back from, these are the areas where your source has shifted. These are the areas where growth lies for you. That single act for her, logging into a platform she abandoned and posting something honest and something true, was the biggest invisible win that she could ever feel. It wasn't because the post got a lot of engagement. That wasn't the thing we were looking for. It was because she returned to a place that she's quietly removed herself. She allowed herself to feel something real and shared it in a place that she had disconnected from. That's what the disconnected mass does. It doesn't fight the work. It doesn't argue with the system. It just leaves the room emotionally. It pulls back. Sometimes it says it's resting, recharging, taking a season, going deeper, and sometimes that's true. But most of the time what's actually happening is the mask is removing the leader from the business because the business hurt them and pulling back now is protecting themselves from being hurt again. So Missy, who we mentioned in the last episode, she told me she said, "I really did feel like I was supposed to get off social media for a season to quiet the noise. But I'm now realizing I stayed off because of the mask." Now that discernment matters because what you have to ask yourself is the pulling back? Is it for a genuine rest or a reason or is it fear? Because there's a difference. And so, disconnection shows up more than any pattern that I see today. Almost every leader that I talk to that has built something real is disconnected in some way because almost every leader in this industry has gone through loss. They've lost a company. They've lost a rank. They've lost people. And the thing that they did to protect themselves, to allow themselves to get through the loss, to not have to feel the pain is now the thing that's keeping you from feeling alive. And so, if you saw yourself in Angela, if you felt disconnection, if the fire has left you, if you still feel called to something and you know that you're supposed to be here but you can't find a path back, then that's probably disconnection. And so, if you've been listening, you've probably recognized yourself in at least one of these masks. Maybe two. Maybe multiple. Normal. Because the masks are not categories that you fit perfectly into, right? They're protective postures. They're suits of armor. And most leaders, they cycle through different ones at different stages. But every one of you does have a primary mask. And that's probably the one that felt most familiar to you. So, here's the question that I would want you to ask yourself a diagnostic to tell which one is true for you. And something hard happens. What do you do first? Do you curate and perfect it before you share it? Do you turn it into something that could be positive encouraging? That's the performer. Do you push someone to feel okay again, whether it's yourself or someone else? That's the pusher. Or do you turn it into a lesson or retreat into teaching instead? That's the teacher. Or do you leave entirely? Just disconnect. So you'll know the answer. Here's what I want you to realize. There's no mask. That's good. One, there's none that are better than the others. All four of them are downstream of fear in the source position. They're all responses to the same underlying problem. The path forward isn't a better mask. It's restoring the order underneath your leadership. See, when love becomes your source, the mask no longer has a job to do. There's nothing to protect you from anymore. When the results are no longer the source of your identity and your belief, and love is leading you and calling is providing the direction and your identity is stable and your belief is real, then the mask is gone. So this is where things get really important. Because as I said, the mask is in your problem. It's the response to your real problem which lies outside of you. See because there's something that was done to you by a system that's been training every leader in this industry into the fear-led order for as long as this industry has existed. the next episode, we are going to name that system. And more importantly, we're going to help you see what it's been doing to you and the people that you're leading. So remember what we said last episode. Fear in the source position changes everything downstream. The mask is just the most visible piece of that change. The mask is what fear puts on so it can keep leading without being exposed. You don't fix a mask by taking it off. You take it off by restoring what's supposed to be in the source position, which is love. So the next episode, we're going to look at the system that trained you into this. Right. And what you're going to see for the first time is something that you have felt for a very long time. And this will be the episode that I think for many of you will be one of the most important awarenesses that you'll ever get in your business. So I'll invite you to join me on the next episode, the third of our little four part mini series here. And hey, do me a favor. If you've been getting any value out of these first couple of episodes and you're feeling connected to this message, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook. Let me know you've been listening to the episodes that they've been connecting with you. I'd love to hear from you to see if I could support you in any way in your journey. So I'll see you soon on the next episode. Take care.