Why as an Executive Leader You Need to Work With Your Unconscious in Order to Be Successful

By Nicola Ellwood, Master Executive Coach

“This is the work I need to do! I was considering an MBA, but this is the work. I’m the only one who can unlock my potential”

A client recently said this to me. And she’s right.

Here’s the truth – we are often the reason we succeed and the reason we stay stuck. We get in our own way. Because it’s all in the unconscious and we don’t even realise.

There’s a huge misconception about what leadership is. It’s not about what you do, the strategy you create, and it’s certainly not behavioural. Leadership is psychological. It is about you and how you show up in your role. It’s the energy you have. It’s what you focus on, what you believe and therefore what you do – how you navigate things…it’s all about you. And if you show up as your best, your teams resonate, and they want to work towards your vision.

So how do you show up?

The compelling reason leaders do the unconscious work

Most leaders have some awareness of how they experience themselves. Often there’s a sense of: ‘This is just who I am.’ But that’s rarely the truth. It’s simply who you’ve been up until this point. I ask my clients, “ok, so if that is who you are now, who do you want to be?

The happy, effective and high-performing leader (the ones who have the best outcomes and culture) know who they are at their best. They have developed and internalised strategies to manage themselves.

So, what are you like, and is that serving you?

On paper, many leaders are performing well; they:

• Drive positively towards high targets.
• Bring people together and make people feel accountable.
• Work at the right level and make strategic decisions.
• Delegate and empower well.
• Span multiple workstreams with no balls dropping.
• Report and govern as required.

But external success doesn’t always match internal experience. Many leaders are delivering exceptional outcomes whilst privately experiencing something very different. They can:

• Feel anxious or out of control.
• Push too hard to make sure the thing does or doesn’t happen.
• Work every hour, overextending themselves
• Feel like the imposter (and that they’ll be found out at any moment).
• Wish relationships were better.
• Wish people would “get on the bus”.
• Feel like they’re just an observer of their world.

If this resonates, imagine the change when your internal world finally aligns with the success everyone else already sees.

Imagine not just achieving outcomes but actually feeling them.

Imagine leading in a way that strengthens both you and the people around you, rather than costing you.

Because when leaders stop fighting themselves unconsciously, they often unlock the very thing they’ve been chasing externally: clarity, energy, fulfilment, and long-term success. Our unconscious shapes how we see ourselves. It manipulates our hidden fears, unexamined beliefs, suppressed emotions, childhood conditioning and unconscious drivers. If we don’t bring these things into consciousness and challenge them, they start running the show.

We move through life listening to an internal soundtrack that feels true, even when it no longer serves us.

Executive leaders do the work

In my work, I often find leaders are operating from an internal reality that simply no longer serves them.

High-performing leaders are willing to unravel the internal patterns shaping them. It’s not easy work. It means looking fear in the face, so it has nowhere left to hide. Challenging beliefs that may once have served them but now limit them. Releasing the emotional weight and stored memories that drain energy and block progress. It means understanding the unconscious drivers behind their behaviours too.

Executive leaders need to recognise what drives their success and what pulls them into unproductive patterns.

When leaders do this work, something shifts. They develop:

• The self-awareness to self-manage with greater flexibility
• Greater congruence between who they are and how they lead
• More confidence in what’s possible
• Strategies to navigate leadership in a way that feels energised, balanced and sustainable

This work impacts teams, too.  Leaders who work with their unconscious tend to create teams built on three things:

1. Strength. Leaders who know themselves encourage others to believe in themselves too. Their clarity, confidence and conviction in the vision gives teams direction and belief in what’s possible.
2. Trust. Congruence creates trust. When leaders are aligned in who they are, what they say and how they show up, teams feel it. It creates psychological safety.
3. Calm. Flexible leaders navigate challenge and change with class and grace. They know they always have choice in how to respond and they role model that to others

Executive leaders who work with their unconscious stop relying on external success to define who they are. They look inwards first.

The greatest shifts in leadership rarely come from adding more or searching outside yourself for the answer. They come from understanding yourself more deeply, removing what no longer serves you and unlocking the resources that were already there. That’s when success stops being something leaders chase and starts becoming something they experience.