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Leadership
Want to be a great leader? Be your own case study
Published March 6, 2025 in Leadership • 4 min read • 
Audio available
Only by coming to terms with your past can you hone the character and resilience to lead at your best.
Anyone who’s been to business school knows case studies are classic teaching tools for sharpening analytical skills. In my classroom, however, there’s only one case study: you.
Whether it’s the loss of a parent, a ruthless boss who leaves you to sink or swim, or a sibling who never lets up, our past experiences shape how we show up at work. While past traumas often get the spotlight, a cushy upbringing can be just as defining – those who faced little hardship growing up often struggle most with setbacks.
In 25 years of running an executive education program designed to develop high-performance leaders, I have observed countless examples of unresolved loss and grief derailing leadership potential. There was the executive who lost his father at a young age and assumed the role of head of the household by default, learning to put everyone else’s needs above his own. And the overindulged child whose parents failed to set boundaries, leaving him expecting the world to pander to him, too.
Most people bury these experiences and don’t learn from them. This repression can manifest in impatience, angry outbursts, or an inability to trust your team. Yet trust is a crucial foundation of high-performance leadership: 93% of business executives say building and maintaining trust improves the bottom line, according to PWC’s 2024 Trust Survey.
To avoid falling foul of these emotional triggers and the unhelpful leadership behaviors they foster, you must understand how your past shaped you.
Let’s take myself as a case study. I grew up on a farm in Ohio and at 13, I was sent to a Catholic seminary with the goal of becoming a priest. While I have many positive memories of my religious education, I endured the loss of a “normal” adolescence and, after eight years, the experience turned into a negative ordeal when I couldn’t face the truth that I wanted to leave. Hostage to conflicting emotions, I was paralyzed by indecision until a confidant at the seminary told me I was free to choose to do what I wanted. This trial was what pioneering leadership thinker Warren Bennis has described as one of the “crucibles of leadership” – an intense, often traumatic, experience that rewires your brain and transforms your life.
“My decision to leave the seminary meant I had to contend with the sadness of not meeting the expectations of myself and others. Reflecting on this offered another crucial lesson: to stop overfocusing on goals.”
Leadership episodes don’t have to be dramatic or violent. They can be as common as being passed over for a promotion, a demanding boss, or feeling alienated in a foreign culture. What matters is how the individual interprets, finds meaning, and adapts to potential setbacks.
My decision to leave the seminary meant I had to contend with the sadness of not meeting the expectations of myself and others. Reflecting on this offered another crucial lesson: to stop overfocusing on goals. My time working as a hostage negotiator was pivotal here. Hostage negotiators never give an ultimatum to the hostage taker. Instead, I learned to establish a connection through dialogue. And it works. Hostage negotiation has a 95% success rate.
It’s similar in the business world. Sure, you have performance targets and objectives. However, to achieve those, leaders must become a secure base for others by creating trust and forming strong bonds to make quick decisions and enabling employees to take risks and seize new opportunities.
This doesn’t mean leaders should shy away from conflict, so addressing past experiences that might have made you conflict-averse is important. Many people are afraid to hold others to account, preferring to save face rather than put “the fish on the table”, as I like to tell the executives I teach. A high-performing leader is kind and courageous, giving honest but respectful feedback.
In an increasingly polarized world, we need more leaders who have become their own case studies, so that they can lead collaboratively with purpose, empathy, and self-control. Leaders who understand and mitigate their emotional triggers will inspire the most positive (and least negative) outcomes.
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Read more about the author and the 2nd edition of his book Hostage at the Table.
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