This is the first of a three-part series exploring a tension most leaders feel but rarely name: the uneasy relationship between identity and circumstance.
In Part 1, we explore what happens when circumstance becomes identity — when title, income, role and reputation begin to define who we believe we are.
In Part 2, we will examine the opposite danger — when identity becomes so rigid that circumstance is ignored, often drifting into narcissism, fantasy, or irresponsibility.
In Part 3, we will search for integration — an identity that outlives circumstance, yet remains responsibly engaged with it.
But we begin where many midlife leaders quietly live … in the fraud narrative.
I did not leave corporate because I hated technology. I left because one day I couldn’t write a board report. The report itself was not complicated. It outlined infrastructure progress, systems implementation, delivery milestones — the usual architecture of a functioning IT department. I had written dozens like it before. But that day, I couldn’t engage with it. It felt foreign in my hands. Restless, I turned around in my office chair and looked at my bookshelf.
One row on faith.
One row on team environments and culture.
One row on leadership and self-development.
And precisely two books on technology (neither of them read).
It was not an epiphany. It was destabilising. Because in that moment I realised something I could not unsee: I was leading a successful technology department… but technology was not my identity.
And once that awareness surfaced, a far more dangerous question followed: If I am not this … then who am I?
I had never been a technologist. I came from marketing. I loved data — not for the systems that produced it, but for the patterns it revealed. I saw connections. I built teams. I led change.
But somewhere along the way, circumstance conferred an identity. Title became shorthand: “IT Executive.” “Technology Leader.” And with the title came projection.
When you lead a large technology division in a listed company, people assume depth. They assume obsession with cloud architecture and code. They assume you care deeply about Amazon, Google, Microsoft.
I didn’t. I cared about the people building those systems.
But I didn’t yet have the language — or the maturity — to articulate that distinction. So I performed.
And performance is dangerous when it’s misaligned. The moment you become consciously aware of misalignment, performance starts to feel like fraud.
That was the quiet narrative beneath my competence: “I’m going to be found out.” Not found out as incapable — the team was performing well. Found out as misplaced.
Psychology distinguishes between role identity and core identity. When the two integrate, there is coherence. When they diverge, anxiety surfaces.
At 50, that divergence is not philosophical. It is economic. Bond repayments. School fees. Medical aid. Reputation. A network built around your title. Provider becomes identity.
And modern culture offers very few safe spaces for a man to say, “I think I am living in the wrong skin.”
So what happens instead? Suppression. Not always through substances. Often through overwork, hyper-performance and relentless busyness as anaesthetic.
But once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
The bookshelf moment was not liberating. It was destabilising. A mild depression followed. Disorientation. And a quiet fear that because I now saw the misalignment, others would soon see it too.
When circumstance becomes identity, awareness feels like exposure. And exposure feels like annihilation.
So I told my superior, “When I graduate, I need a shift.” It would take twelve months before that shift materialised. But internally, something decisive happened. I moved from “fraud waiting to be exposed” to “author of a transition.”
Relief followed. Support followed. A dignified shift followed.
My story has a good ending. But alignment is possible — not guaranteed.
It would be tempting to end here with a clean resolution. But that would be dishonest. My remuneration today is a fraction of what it once was. There is still tension. There is still financial fear.
Alignment is not utopia. It is agency. And agency is different from comfort.
Not everyone can resign. Not everyone can pivot immediately. The alternative to resignation is not suppression.
There are gradients of alignment: side projects, repositioning, long-runway transitions, coaching conversations before decisive action.
What matters is not whether you leave. What matters is whether you bury. Because once you become consciously aware that your circumstance has become your identity, you have crossed a threshold. You cannot unsee it.
If your title disappeared tomorrow… who would remain?
In Part 2, we will examine the opposite cliff — when identity ignores circumstance and drifts into rigidity or narcissism.
But for now, sit with this: Are you living in a role… or are you living from a self?
📷 StockCake