Years ago, I was promoted to CMO of a publicly traded company. My name got filed with the SEC. I had business cards with a C on them. Very official.
The job didn't actually change that much. But I did.
Same team. Same CEO asking the same hard questions. But somewhere between the press release and updating my LinkedIn, I started performing. Not performing as in doing well. Performing as in acting.
And not badly, either. That's the trap. Results were solid. Reviews were good. But something had shifted. It was the twilight zone of leadership.
Everything looks normal from the outside. From the inside, the walls are slightly off. The light's wrong. You're saying the right things, but they don't sound like you.
When my CEO pushed on marketing results — something he'd done plenty of times before — I didn't answer the same way. Before, I'd take it head-on. Now I hedged, wrapping straightforward answers in strategic-sounding padding. Some part of me had decided: a CMO doesn't just answer a question. He navigates it.
The conference stage is where it really showed up. I used to be a confident speaker. Not polished — just real. I could connect with a room like I'd connect with someone over coffee. Then I got stage fright. Actual stage fright. Heart racing, palms sweating, dreading the podium — at conferences I'd done a dozen times. This had never happened to me.
I dressed differently. Not better — just more "executive." I spoke more formally. Less me. Trying to sound like what a CMO should sound like. The result: less engaging, less natural, less connected. The thing I was best at — being real with people — was the first thing I gave up.
Media interviews, same thing. I dialed up the gravitas to a setting anyone who knows me would find hilarious. I wasn't failing. I was delivering. And yet — disconnected. From the instincts that got me promoted. From the style my team signed up for. From the version of me that actually worked.
I second-guessed decisions I'd have made without blinking six months earlier — not because they were wrong, but because they didn't seem like what a CMO would do.
Something was off. I didn't have a word for it. It took over a decade to find one: centering.
Every leader has a center — the place you lead from when you're not thinking about how you're supposed to lead. When I got the title, I didn't lose ability. I lost that. I stopped leading from the place that got me there. My instincts hadn't changed. I'd just stopped trusting them.
That's the trap. Not incompetence. Not decline. Displacement.
You move away from your center because you think the role demands it — or because of politics, pressure, or what's happening at home. And because you're good enough to pull it off, nobody tells you. But you know something's off. And people feel it.
That gap — between how you naturally lead and what's actually showing up — is the twilight zone.
Are you performing?