The Armour We Don't Know We're Wearing

A client of mine - a senior exec I've been coaching for a few weeks - said something last session that's stuck with me:

"I don't mind being vulnerable. I just wouldn't say this to my other exec colleagues."

We'd been talking about a small thing that had thrown him. A team he manages, one where he doesn't have deep technical expertise, had started using his first name. Not "boss." Not nothing. His name. He couldn't quite explain why it caught him off guard, but it had.

Digging into it, what surfaced was an assumption he'd never actually tested: that this team's regard for him was thinner than it was, built more on hierarchy than on him. The name wasn't proof of anything, really - but it was enough to loosen the assumption's grip. He'd spent the two weeks before our session being more visible with that team - turning up to stand-ups, clearing a blocker himself instead of routing it - and the shift in how they spoke to him told him something his org’ chart never could.

That's often where the real leverage sits: not in becoming more expert, but in becoming more present. Most leaders can't out-learn their specialists and trying to is usually the wrong move anyway. What they can do is show up in the room. Visibility, it turns out, is a variable you can move even when expertise and time are fixed.

The second thing, later in the same session, was less about the team and more about him. I asked if I could share an observation. He said yes, and I told him it seemed like he was more confident, more himself, when he was talking from behind what we ended up calling his "corporate armour": the business, the strategy, the numbers. The moment the conversation turned personal, something dropped.

He agreed immediately. And then he said the line that's the real point of this post: being willing to feel uncomfortable is what lets you change. The armour protects you, but it also blocks the exact discomfort that growth runs on.

I don't think that's unique to him. Most of us have a version of that armour - a register we're fluent and safe in and another we go quiet in. The interesting leadership question isn't "how do I get rid of it" - the armour is often doing useful work. It's "do I know where mine is, and can I choose when to take it off?"

Two small moments in one hour: a name and an admission. Neither one was the point on its own. Together, they were a leader noticing - in real time - the gap between how he's perceived and how he perceives himself, and starting to close it on purpose.