Latest / Executive Careers with Fexingo: VP, C-Suite, and Senior Leadership Career Strategy / How Senior Leaders Separate Their Identity From Their Job Title
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a moment that sticks with me from a conversation I had a few years ago with a former Fortune 500 CFO. She had left her role suddenly—company restructure, nothing scandalous—and she found herself at a dinner party three weeks later. Someone asked, 'So, what do you do?' And she opened her mouth to answer and realised she had no idea what to say. Luna: Oof. That's the sound of identity collapsing into a job title. Lucas: Exactly. She told me she had been that company's CFO for twelve years. Every bio, every introduction, every nametag said it. And when that title disappeared, she didn't just lose a job—she lost the shorthand she used to explain herself to the world. Luna: And I bet she's not alone. I think a lot of senior leaders, especially those who've been in a C-suite role for a decade or more, build their entire social and professional identity around that one label. Lucas: Right. And that's what we're talking about today on Executive Careers: how senior leaders separate their identity from their job title. Not just after a departure, but proactively—so you're not caught off guard when the title goes away. Luna: Because it always goes away eventually. Retirement, restructuring, a board decision you don't agree with—something will separate you from that chair. Lucas: So let's start with the CFO story, because she actually did something interesting after that dinner party. She went home and wrote down two lists. On the left, everything her job gave her: a sense of purpose, a daily schedule, a network of colleagues, a reason to travel, a nice office. On the right, everything she genuinely valued in her life apart from work: being a parent, running half-marathons, her Sunday-morning jazz radio show she hosted on a community station. Luna: She had a jazz radio show? That's fantastic. Lucas: She did. And she realised that most of the left column—the job benefits—she had never consciously chosen. They just came with the role. But the right column, those were choices she had made. And she had been neglecting them for years because the job consumed her bandwidth. Luna: So the first step is just inventory. Figure out what's you and what's the title. Lucas: Exactly. I've since recommended that 'two-column exercise' to a handful of senior leaders I've coached. And almost everyone finds something surprising. One COO realised that his entire social circle was work colleagues—he had no friends outside the company. Another VP of Marketing discovered that her identity was so wrapped up in her title that she couldn't even describe her own hobbies without referencing work. Luna: It's like a diagnostic. But what do you do with the results? How do you actually start separating? Lucas: The CFO's next move was to take something from the right column and elevate it to a commitment. She joined the board of a local arts nonprofit. Not as a finance expert—they had that—but as a general board member. No title attached to her role, just 'board member.' She said it was the first time in years she showed up somewhere and no one expected her to be the numbers person. Luna: That's a smart forcing function. You have to show up and be a person, not a role. Lucas: And she told me it was uncomfortable at first. She kept wanting to say, 'Well, at my company we did X.' And she had to stop herself. That's the habit of identity-bleed—you bring the job with you into rooms where it doesn't belong. Luna: So part of the separation is literally practicing not talking about work in non-work settings. That sounds simple, but for a senior leader who's spent two decades being introduced as 'our CFO,' it's a muscle you have to build. Lucas: Absolutely. And there's a deeper layer here, which is about internal identity. Not just how you present to others, but how you think about yourself when no one's watching. I had a client—CEO of a mid-cap tech firm—who told me that on Sunday nights, he would feel a knot in his stomach thinking about Monday. But he couldn't tell if that was anxiety about the job, or anxiety about losing the job, because he couldn't picture himself as anything other than a CEO. Luna: That's a really important distinction. Am I afraid of the work, or am I afraid of the void? Lucas: We worked on that by having him write a 'five-year post-exit' letter to himself. Not a resignation letter, but a letter from his future self, five years after leaving the CEO role, describing a typical Tuesday. What time does he wake up? Who does he have coffee with? What's he working on? It forced him to imagine a life with a different center of gravity. Luna: Did it help? Lucas: It did. He realised that his ideal Tuesday didn't involve a corner office—it involved a long bike ride, some mentoring with young founders, and cooking dinner for his family. Those things were available to him now, but he was too busy being CEO to do them. The letter made him see that his identity could be richer, not poorer, without the title. Luna: And we're talking about this because it's not just about retirement. I think the inability to separate identity from title can actually hurt your performance as a leader. Lucas: Big time. When your self-worth is tied to the role, you make decisions to protect the role, not the company. You avoid tough succession conversations because grooming a successor feels like making yourself replaceable. You hold onto power too long. You take fewer risks because failure isn't just a business outcome—it's a personal blow. Luna: So in a weird way, the leaders who are most secure in their identity outside the job are actually better at the job. They can make the hard call without ego. Lucas: Exactly. And this is something I've seen in my own career, honestly. Before I started this podcast network, I was an editor at a business publication. My entire identity was wrapped up in that masthead. When I left, I felt untethered for months. It wasn't until I started doing independent work—consulting, writing a newsletter, this show—that I realised I had to rebuild a sense of professional self that wasn't attached to a single institution. Luna: And you've built something that's very much your own now. But that transition period is hard. And I think a lot of senior leaders avoid it because they know it will be hard. Lucas: They do. And that's why we're talking about it. Because the earlier you start the separation process, the easier it is. You don't want to be that CFO at the dinner party with nothing to say. Luna: True. And I think it's also worth noting that the same principle applies within a role. You can be a senior leader at a company and still have a sense of self that isn't defined by that company. It makes you more resilient to internal politics, restructures, all of it. Lucas: Right. So one practical tactic I recommend is the 'non-work board seat.' Not an advisory role tied to your expertise, but a genuine board seat in an area you're passionate about but not expert in. It forces you to learn a new domain, new vocabulary, new relationships—all without the crutch of your title. Luna: And ideally something that meets during business hours, so you have to actually carve out time for it. That's a commitment. Lucas: Exactly. The CFO I mentioned earlier, she ended up on three nonprofit boards over five years. By the time she left her corporate role, she had a whole other professional identity waiting. She transitioned into a portfolio career as a board director and advisor. She wasn't starting from zero. Luna: And that's the goal, right? Not to have a crisis, but to have a plan. I think a lot of senior leaders, especially in their fifties and sixties, assume they'll figure out the identity piece when the time comes. But the time comes fast, and it's much harder to build a new identity under pressure. Lucas: You know, this actually connects to something we've talked about on previous episodes—like building a career moat, or using personal playbooks. The common thread is intentionality. You don't drift into a diversified identity. You have to design it. Luna: And we're trying to help listeners do that. Which reminds me—one of the reasons we can have these conversations in a focused, ad-free way is that listeners who find value in the show sometimes choose to support it. If this episode has made you think about your own identity, and you want to help us keep doing this without commercials, there's a link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's all lowercase, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a way to say thanks if it's helped. Lucas: And it genuinely does help. It means we don't have to chase sponsors or tailor content to advertisers. We can just talk about what matters for senior leaders. So, gratitude to anyone who's contributed. Luna: Alright, back to identity separation. Lucas, what's one thing a senior leader could do this week to start untangling? Lucas: The two-column exercise. Take twenty minutes, write down what your job gives you and what you value independently. If the overlap is too big, that's a signal. Then pick one thing from the right column and make a non-work commitment around it. A class, a volunteer role, a hobby group. Something that meets regularly and doesn't care about your title. Luna: And if you're already retired or between roles, it's not too late. You can do the same exercise, but the left column is 'what my old role gave me' and the right column is 'what I want my next chapter to be about.' Lucas: Exactly. And I'll add one more thing: talk to your partner or a close friend about it. Identity separation is hard to see from the inside. Someone who knows you outside work can often point out where you're blurring the lines. Luna: Good advice. For me, I think the most powerful takeaway is that your identity isn't something you have to protect—it's something you get to build. And the more pieces it has, the stronger it is. Lucas: Well said. I think we'll leave it there for episode fifty-eight. Next time, we're going to talk about something I've been getting a lot of questions on: how senior leaders handle the 'ghost' of their predecessor when stepping into a new role. It's a dynamic that can derail even the best onboarding. Luna: Looking forward to that. Thanks for listening, everyone. We'll catch you next week. Lucas: Take care.