What if some of the things that made you successful are the very things you now need to let go of?

In this episode of The Conscious Leaders Unfiltered, Cheryl and Kiah get personal about the leadership habits they once thought were strengths—perfectionism, control, fixing everything, having all the answers, staying strong, and avoiding vulnerability.

Because here’s the uncomfortable part: some behaviours weren’t flaws when we developed them. They helped us survive, succeed, earn praise, or feel safe. But survival skills can become limitations when we carry them into places they no longer belong.

Cheryl and Kiah explore how childhood, school, early workplaces, and the validation we receive along the way quietly shape the leaders we become. And they ask a harder question: What happens when the version of you that got you here isn’t the version that can take you where you want to go next?

This is a conversation about unlearning without shaming who you used to be—and recognizing that conscious leadership isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about being willing to notice, question, own, and change.

Strong leadership gets redefined.
Cheryl and Kiah unpack how having all the answers, being overly directive, and equating control with competence can look like strong leadership while actually creating distance, dependence, and resistance.

Kiah examines where her directive leadership came from.
She reflects on early experiences of being told what to do and how those experiences shaped a highly instructional, solution-focused leadership style that sometimes left too little room for collaboration.

Cheryl confronts her identity as “the fixer.”
Being the person who could solve anything earned recognition and validation—but eventually, always being available to fix everyone else’s problems became exhausting and unsustainable.

They unpack survival behaviours that overstayed their welcome.
Perfectionism. Emotional rigidity. Control. Over-functioning. Conflict avoidance. Always being strong. These patterns may have served a purpose once, but conscious leadership requires asking whether they still do.

They explore the danger of rewarded behaviour.
Sometimes the hardest patterns to change are the ones people applauded us for. Cheryl and Kiah examine what happens when praise reinforces behaviours that eventually limit us and the people we lead.

Other people become mirrors.
Instead of immediately judging someone’s reaction, body language, or energy, what if we became curious about what it might be reflecting back to us?

Cheryl challenges our attachment to predetermined outcomes.
Conscious leadership sometimes means loosening our grip on exactly how things “should” turn out and making room for possibilities we haven’t considered yet.

Kiah gets real about limiting language.
She shares how words like never can quietly become declarations about our future—and how she is learning to recognize and release defeatist thinking before it becomes a self-imposed boundary.

They name the leadership identities that are hardest to release.
Being infallible. Always strong. Always available. Never needing help. Never showing vulnerability. Sometimes growth means letting people see that you don’t have it all figured out.

And ultimately, this episode comes back to compassion.
You can take accountability for who you were without staying trapped there. Other people may forgive your mistakes—but eventually, you have to make room to forgive yourself, too.

“What did I mistake for leadership? I guess in a way it was perfection—or pretending like I knew all the answers.”

“You knew what you knew when you were there. That’s it.”

“Listen more.”

What helped you survive, succeed, or feel safe in an earlier version of your life—but might be asking to be unlearned now?

Because growth isn’t always about becoming more.

Sometimes growth is finally putting down what you no longer need to carry.

Cheryl x Kiah