There is something no one tells you when you start doing the work of becoming your best self.
Your best self has limits.
Not because you are not growing. Not because you have not trained. But because your best self is a *specific* person — not a perfect one. And the sooner you embrace that, the more powerful you become.
Through my Leadership Letters over the past several months, we have done important work together.
You identified the internal patterns pulling you away from your best self. You gained clarity about who you are when you are operating at your highest. And last month, we tackled the hardest part: the gap between knowing and doing. You now have a system — anchored to your Best Self Statement, built around two or three critical behaviors, practiced through daily intentional reps.
That is your foundation for progress.
Now I want to give you something equally important — and far less talked about: Permission to be Human
The Other Side of Knowing Your Best Self
Tools like CliftonStrengths® and CoreClarity® do something remarkable. They hand you a mirror. They show you your wiring — the patterns of thinking, feeling, and doing that are uniquely yours.
When you look in that mirror you see your strengths. That part feels good.
That same mirror shows you something else: the things you are *not* wired for. The tasks that drain you. The modes of thinking that don’t come naturally. The areas where no amount of training will turn you into someone you simply are not designed to be.
Here is where many leaders get stuck. They treat those limits as problems to solve. Gaps to close. Evidence that they are not yet ‘enough.”
What if that framing is exactly backwards?
Permission to Be Human
One of the most freeing things you can do — as a leader, as a person — is give yourself permission to be human.
Not as an excuse. Not as a reason to stop growing. But as an honest acceptance of how you are designed.
Being human means you will make mistakes — not because you are careless, but because you are navigating complex, imperfect situations with limited information. You, just like everyone else are on a journey. A journey that is a meander of trial and error, and learning. It means you have blind spots — not because you lack intelligence, but because every perspective has edges. And it means there are some things you will never do well, no matter how hard you train. You are on a journey to your best self, not your perfect self.
That is not failure. That is design.
And here is the gift buried inside that truth: when you stop pretending to be everything, you become free to be extraordinary at something.
If you are a Ferrari, be a Ferrari. If you are a Jeep, be a Jeep. Remember, Ferraris don’t go off-road and Jeeps don’t win road races against Ferraris!
Maybe you’re a mini-van, or bus, truck, motorcycle… that doesn’t matter. What matters is figuring what you are, and doing more of that.
Your limits are not the opposite of your strengths. In many ways, they are part of the same package. The same wiring that makes you visionary may make you restless with routine or frustrated by details. The same drive that makes you decisive may make you impatient in slow consensus processes. You do not get the strength without the shadow.
Knowing that — really knowing it — changes how you lead.
The Virtuous Cycle
This is where personal clarity becomes a team superpower.
When you are honest about your limits, something shifts. You stop taking on tasks you are not built for. You stop muscling through work that drains you while calling it discipline. And you create space — visible, intentional space — for someone else to step in.
That someone else? There is a good chance they are *designed* for exactly what you have been struggling with. And they have been waiting, hoping for the invitation.
Multiply that dynamic across a team, and watch what happens:
- More people spend more time doing work they are wired for
- Energy stops bleeding into exhaustion and quiet resentment
- Teams stop compensating for each other’s weaknesses and start combining each other’s strengths
- Results improve — not by grinding harder, but by working more aligned
This is the virtuous cycle. Self-awareness leads to honest deployment. Honest deployment leads to fulfilled people. Fulfilled people build stronger teams. Stronger teams produce better results. And around it goes — building momentum, compounding over time.
It begins with one person being willing to say: *I am not built for everything. And that is not a problem — that is the design.*
I saw this transformation happen after I worked with a tam that was in serious trouble. The leader was actually being court-martialed by two team members. They were underperforming, not getting along, and struggling to meet their goals.
We decided to hold a two-day retreat focused on values as they learned about their individual strengths. It didn’t take long to hear people not only owning and being excited about their talents, they were acknowledging and excited about the gifts of their team members. They would tell stories about seeing other’s strengths and genuinely respecting their differences.
During our retreat they began reassigning people to roles better suited to their strengths. At the conclusion of the training a special forces leader, who had a masters degree in psychology, said, “This was great. You have given me actionable intel on how to best deploy my team members that will make us more effective. Thank you.”
Two months later I learned that the internal conflict solved and the team had gone from being a laughing stock and a team to be avoided to the team other people wanted to join. Other people in the organization wanted to be assigned to that team because “you see, take care of, and develop your people.”
What This Looks Like in Practice
Embracing your gifts and accepting your limits is not passive. It is one of the most intentional choices a leader makes. Here is how it shows up:
Delegate from design, not just from your to-do list. When you hand something off, ask whether it is going to someone whose strengths align with it — not just whoever has bandwidth.
Name your limits without apology. In your next team conversation, try saying: *”This is genuinely not my strongest area — who is well-suited to take the lead here?”* Notice what that kind of honesty does to the energy in the room.
Protect your zone of contribution. Look at your calendar this week. How much of it is spent in areas where you are genuinely strong? If it is less than half, something needs to shift.
Celebrate what others do that you cannot. This one is hard for high-achievers. But when you genuinely admire a team member for something you do not do well — and say so — you build a culture where diverse strengths are valued, not just tolerated.
Here’s a clip of me putting this in practice and being human. My journey has me taking drum lessons again even though I have drummed semi-professionally for over 40 years. My teacher told me he hopes I drop my sticks while playing because it is a sig I am playing loose with a proper grip. I hope he is proud of me!
Related Reading:
Your Reflection & Next Step
Reflection: *Where have I been spending energy trying to overcome a limit — when I could instead be creating an opportunity for someone else to contribute their strength?*
Sit with that. Journal on it. Bring it into your daily five-minute reflection.
Action step: In the next two weeks, identify one recurring task or responsibility that consistently drains you — something that does not align with your strengths. Then intentionally move it toward someone whose design is a better fit. Notice what shifts — for you, for them, and for the work itself.
That is not weakness. That is wisdom. That is leadership.
Perfectly imperfect. That is not a consolation prize.
That is the design.
Ready to go deeper?
If you are enjoying this series, I would love to have a real conversation about what living and leading from your design could look like for you — with clarity, consistency, and permission to be exactly who you are built to be.
Let’s Connect to schedule a complimentary 30-minute coaching conversation.