Leadership wounds are real. They come from developing talent only to be replaced by the people you mentored. From birthing a program that gets reassigned, leaving you wondering if your contribution was ever truly seen. From being put between a rock and a hard place with too much ambiguity and too little support. From micromanagement, toxic environments, or simply never being told that what you were doing was, in fact, leading.
These wounds make some people second-guess whether they want to lead again. Some never do. But here is what I keep coming back to based on the original story of Chiron and Carl Jung’s work: it is not the wound that defines the leader. It is what you do with it.
Bob Iger speaks to this in his MasterClass. Because of the challenges he faced as a member of a company that was acquired, he was able to relate to Steve Jobs on a whole other level, ensuring that Disney’s acquisition of Pixar would not go the way of other mergers and acquisitions. It is what you do with the wound.
The Pendulum
I have watched the pendulum swing in organizations: all urgency on one side, all stillness on the other. If you are around long enough to see it swing from one side to the other, you can balance it out or account for the momentum of that swing. The wisdom is not in making a large-scale change. It is in watching long enough to know what part to adjust and when.
I built my leadership framework based on that observation. Having been the victim of micromanagement, I designed my approach around giving people enough structure to move forward on their own. Having lived inside constant urgency and chaos, I learned that slowing down to plan was not a loss of momentum. It was how I finally felt present enough to lead.
The Wounded Teacher
My approach to training was also shaped by a wound. I was once thrown into a room with no context, no handoff, and told to teach. So I taught everything. And at the end, someone looked at me and said, ” Why did you teach us that? We don’t need it.
That question changed everything.
It is not the teacher’s job to give learners everything they might ever need to know. It is the teacher’s job to find what they need in order to trust themselves to do their work. When I stopped giving people everything and started tailoring the curriculum to exactly what would help them get their job done, something shifted. Confidence went up. Survey scores went up. The most worried rooms became the best results.
The wound taught me how to teach.
Recognizing the Leader in the Room
One more thing I see often: people who do not see themselves as leaders. I have walked into rooms full of people pioneering in their fields, people who have shaped decisions, influenced direction, changed outcomes, and they still say, I am not a leader.
If someone followed your advice, if your words moved people to action, if your vision planted something others are still tending: you led. It may not have looked like a title or a hierarchy. But leadership shows up in what you lead, not just whether you hold the position.
Not recognizing yourself as a leader does not make you less of one. Sometimes it makes you more effective, because you are not performing for the role. You are simply doing the work.
The Invitation
The wound does not disqualify you. In many cases, it is exactly what equipped you.
I don’t know that Chiron would have been able to heal others if he hadn’t first attempted to heal himself. That is the practice. Not perfection. Not immunity. Just the ongoing, honest work of knowing your wound well enough that it becomes something you can offer.
What wound has shaped the way you lead?
