Canceling High Performance:

Why the Best Leaders Are Canceling Performance — Not Results

How to cancel performance, not Results
Where are you performing instead of leading?

Recently, someone asked me if I’m a performer.

I really took pause.

I’ve never fully seen myself as a performer.

Yes, I love to design a set and costumes with my band, paying attention to each intricate detail. But when I get up on stage, I’m channeling the raw truth of who I am. I’m not “playing a character,” I’m being more… me. An aspect of me. 
I’ve always seen myself as an artist. A musician. A facilitator; someone who helps supportively people examine where they’re in and out of alignment, and who they need to become to create what they truly desire. Not out of putting on a role, but by becoming more of who they truly are. 

I speak, coach, and sing as vehicles to serve that mission.

An artist embodies their work.
It’s an identity.
A truth of who you are.

It’s being who you are and letting your expression flow through you.

So when I asked myself, “Am I a performer?” .. it didn’t quite sit right.

And that question opened something bigger about how performance shows up in leadership, and where it can be problematic, especially heading into a year of accelerated uncertainty in 2026.

2026 won’t reward harder-working leaders.
It will reward more grounded ones.

The leaders who struggle this year won’t fail because change is constant.
They’ll struggle because they’re still leading from performance instead of identity.

That’s what I’m canceling.

The Roles We Carry (and the Expectations We Inherit)

Friend.
Parent.
Leader.
Team member.
Caretaker.
Creator.

How often do you show up in those roles with an unspoken expectation of how you’re supposed to be?

Really pause and consider that.

Are you doing the things you think you should do to be a “good” parent…
a successful leader…
a reliable team member?

And is it actually working?

Where does it feel heavy?
Where does it feel exhausting?

That heaviness is often where performance creeps in and your leadership actions start running on shoulds instead of truth.

The Nuance Most Leadership Conversations Miss

Here’s the nuance I keep noticing.

Performance, by definition, is external.
It’s something you put on.
Something shaped by expectation, standards, optics, and outcomes.

Now, in leadership, outcomes do matter. If you (like me) stand for excellence, this might feel in conflict. You may be asking, “How do I keep my standards and deliver excellence if I’m not driven by performance?” 

But maybe it’s not that high performance needs to be canceled, maybe it’s that your relationship with it needs to be retooled?

The problem — especially in leadership — is when living and leading becomes about meeting an external version of success instead of responding to what’s actually true.

This isn’t just a personal cost. Over time, it erodes decision-making abilities and quality, leadership presence, and the very results that leaders are trying to create.

This is where internal leadership conflict shows up: when you’re trying harder to apply all the rules, roles, tactics, and “right” ways you were taught,  in order to deliver the results you’re expected to give, while quietly abandoning the truest parts of you.

This can lead to muting your most authentic contributions and unconsciously silencing your leadership voice.

You start showing up the way you think you’re “supposed” to.
Not necessarily the way that’s aligned or honest.

 

Why the Last Year Made This Impossible to Ignore

For so many, this last year (2025) was a lot to process! It may have intensified self-doubt, questioning how to show up in empowered leadership at all. 

With so much changing in society politically and socially, and with fast-moving advancements in AI, there was much to process, all at once. At times, I found myself feeling inert, paused, and in deep contemplation about what truly matters.

I saw this reflected in the leaders I work with. Capable people who care deeply. People doing “all the right things,” yet quietly navigating the tension between how they were expected to show up and what actually felt true. Struggling to find their own voice and trust themselves to continue leading in a time when the weight of that felt even heavier.   

Leadership challenges are demanding enough on their own, let alone in a time of disruption, uncertainty, and rapid change.

When leaders struggle to find their center like this, what often happens next is reaching for the familiar. What you’ve been taught. The scripts. The tactics. Following someone else’s “right way” to lead. 

Someone else’s performance.

What Performative Leadership Actually Looks Like

At its core, performative leadership looks like this: Leading from external expectations instead of internal truth.

From the outside, everything can look good.

You’re capable.
You’re respected.
You’re getting things done.

But inside, it takes more effort than it should.

This isn’t just burnout.
And it’s not a motivation problem.

It’s what happens when success is being maintained by performance instead of alignment.

Over time, the cost quietly compounds:

• Decision fatigue
• Emotional weight
• The sense that you’re carrying more than you should alone
• Pervasive second-guessing and self-doubt

You might say to yourself

• “I might appear successful, but I’m tired,”
• “I’m carrying more than I should.”
• “What used to work doesn’t anymore.”
• “I replay decisions in my head over and over.”
• “I feel a kind of leadership hangover after constant decisions.”

These are completely normal human experiences. Leadership is a lot. 

But when you learn to step out of “performing” your leadership role, and step into it through the portal of who you truly are, it becomes easier to trust yourself, and your decisions, and this can lighten the weight of leadership; shifting from something you perform, to something that becomes embodied and empowered. 

What I’m Actually Canceling

I’m not canceling excellence.
I’m not canceling results.
I’m not canceling ambition.

But I am canceling the performance of high performance. The relationship to the version of high performance that asks you to constantly put on masks, to fit roles, rather than leading as your true self from the inside out.

I’m canceling (and inviting you to cancel) the kind of performance that looks like:

• Walking into a team meeting and saying the “right” phrases, the ones you were taught, the ones you know “can work,” even though something in your body feels off and you’re not fully behind what you’re saying.
• Making a decision the way a “strong leader is supposed to,” decisive, confident, buttoned up, while ignoring the quiet signal that the timing is wrong, the information is incomplete, or you actually need a different conversation first.
• Holding it together all day for your team: being calm, encouraging, positive, and then replaying the conversations later in your head over and over, second-guessing and being critical about how you should’ve done things differently. 
• Over-preparing for conversations you’ve already had a hundred times, not because you don’t know what you’re doing, but because you don’t trust yourself to show up without the script anymore.
• Saying yes to expectations, timelines, or roles that no longer fit and then privately telling yourself, “I’ll deal with how this feels later.”

That’s the performance I’m canceling.

Because when you stop performing and lead more fully from your being:

• Decisions become cleaner
• Gain Energy back
• You’re better able to hold your team accountable in a way in which they rise to their own potential
• Results stop requiring self-betrayal

When you stop performing leadership and step into deeper, self-empowered leadership, you don’t lose results. Instead:

You gain clarity and steadier energy.
You learn how to make decisions that you don’t have to recover from later.

And I’m inviting you to cancel this for yourself this year, too.

Not by caring less.

But by leading from what’s actually true, instead of what you were taught leadership is supposed to look like.

A Better Question for 2026

So what if the question isn’t:
How do I get more results?

What if it’s more subtle, and more important: Where am I leading in a way that no longer fits who I am, or the kind of leadership the world needs now?

And what if you actually trusted what you’re noticing?

In the next piece, we’ll explore: “I’ve realized I’m performing. Now what?”

How to stop leading from external expectations and start leading from self-trust, moving from inner clarity to outer alignment.

Big Arrival Energy

My phrase for the year is Big Arrival Energy, not rooted in performance, but in authenticity.

For those who follow astrology, this year marks a shift: moving out of a season of reflection and shedding (the year of the wood snake) and into being fully here (the year of the fire horse).

This marks the time to show up fully, and take actions in alignment, be in momentum without self-betrayal. No looking back, it’s here and now and forward.

If you’re entering 2026 ready for big things because of who you really are — not who you think you should be — consider this:

Where are you dropping performance for performance’s sake?
And what might that make possible in your life and leadership?

Here’s to the kind of leadership that doesn’t need a mask and still delivers results.